2011, what a rush!

So we have but less than 2 days of 2011 left, 2012 is just around the corner. For many of us that will mean New years resolutions, Diets, Fitness fads etc.

So in this blog piece I'd like to take one last reflection of 2011.

To me 2011 has been one hell of a year, its been hectic and so much change, but change for the good. To be honest 2011 has been one of the best in living memory to me.

As I was driving to work earlier today I was thinking, as I usually do. I quite enjoy my drive to work as I don't work in conventional times so I don't get stressed by rush hour traffic. Instead I get a nice drive, get to listen to the radio and collect my thoughts. As I was doing so this morning I was thinking about where I was this time last year, in a kind of review of myself.

This time last year I was single, living in a shared house with 5 other people, 2 of which were good friends of mine and about to move out themselves. Work was going ell but I was eager for change and wanted to get a promotion to prove I could step up. I never really set new years resolutions, In fact I set one about 3 years ago and have religious stuck to it ever since, I set myself the resolution to never set new years resolutions and that if I wanted to improve myself I'd just do it, rather than wait for a new year or new month or new week. So for 2011 I intended on keeping to that resolution and set myself the goal to ensure I'd get the step up I wanted from work.

2011 started like many other years, I went to a party to toast the year in and went home to my room in my house share alone. Little did I know that in just 6 weeks I'd meet someone who'd change my life forever. By mid February I went on a first date with a woman, She turned up to the date wearing flowery pants and I can remember thinking that she was quite different, she was confident and independent. As the night went on I enjoyed her company more so and though this was someone I really liked.

By another 6 weeks we were an official couple and expecting the birth of our first child together. This obviously shocked us, but we were happy and bracing ourselves for a future together. Add into the mix my, now girlfriend already having a 3 year old child and already 3months into the year my life had drastically changed, but changed for the good, I was happy and after introducing my girlfriend to my family I remember one of my sisters saying that her and my mother had noticed how happy I was, like they hadn't seen me for a long time.

Over the next couple of months came many events and getting prepared for our baby. Most notably moving in together in between going to various music festivals and BBQ's. Then in September I achieved my main aim of the year in getting a promotion at work. This was obviously great timing with a new arrival on the way.

Most importantly in this year though, in November was the birth of my first child and my girlfriends second. It was a special moment for us and going into the new year makes our family feel complete. If you've read my previous posts on this subject you'll know with how much pride and relief this gave me being at the birth and how much in awe of my girlfriend I am.

Looking back on this year makes me realise how much has changed, how much I've had to grow up and become responsible. I am very grateful and thankful for all the elements that went into this year. I only aim to make next year better by continuing on the work I've done this year, ensuring I'm successful both in the family front and in the work front.

I guess to wrap up 2011 I must say this, Thanks to everyone for reading my blog, I promise the next one won't be like some terrible review show that you see on TV at this time of the year. And most importantly thank you to my girlfriend whose blog you can read here. She has been fantastic this year to me and has helped me get through the Ups and downs and everything. Thank you @peagreengwin I'm so happy beyond words and it's all down to her and I look forward to the future with her ever more so but I am pretty darn happy with the present and don't want to wish away the time right now, Live for the present guys!

See you all in 2012.

Is This Christmas ?

So as Noddy Holder said famously, "It's CCCCCCHHHHRRRRIIISSSTMASSSSS!!!!!"

This week theres not much to write about. Except about Christmas. We successfully manage to buy a Christmas tree and decorate although E (the eldest) decided to help us, she couldn't quite get the concept of spreading out the decorations, and so for most of the day of our new tree the decorations tended to be on the bottom left corner of the tree as thats as far as she could reach.

Over previous years, I found Christmas was slowly slipping away from me. I love Christmas and all it stands for, but as you get older and have to work more Christmas gets harder to get into. I do love listening to Christmas songs and look forward to nothing more than uploading my Christmas mix onto my Ipod. Although this year it has been listened to significantly less. This is due to me not walking to work anymore, I live to far away so I must drive, and I must admit I've been rubbish at putting music onto CD so I tend to listen to the radio.

Also by this time of year I've watched about 8 Christmas movies, any guilty pleasure of mine. But again this has been hard to do due to a mix of working patterns and my girlfriends lack of excitement of watching Christmas movies. It's not her fault thats just not her thing and I feel bad subjecting her to it.

Alas, Christmas will truly hit home in the next few days, I am off work as of the weekend for 9 days, this will lead to visiting family and hopefully making a snowman or two. The thing that will truly make Christmas hit home and what I am most looking forward to this year is the Children. This is my first Christmas as a Dad. My step daughter kind of understands Christmas enough to be excited for Santa. T is only a few weeks old so we will be lucky she'll be awake for more than 20 minutes on Christmas day.

Christmas eve is what I am looking forward to most.  Previously as a singleton Christmas for me revolved around Boxing day, or Boxing day madness as I christened it. Boxing day would be the regular meal of Turkey, home cooked chips and egg that my mam makes and then at 1pm I'd go down the pub with my friends and not come home till around 3am. However now I'm a dad this year I'm looking forward to Christmas Eve the most, this year getting all of E's presents ready for her and most importantly before she goes to bed to watch my favourite Christmas movie of all time with her, the one thing I have to watch on Christmas Eve and have done so since I was a little boy. The greatest Christmas movie of all time, A Muppets Christmas Carol of course. Now Charles Dickens, famous novel has been hashed loads of time, but my favourite is by the muppets, with Michael Caine as Scrooge, I don;t exactly know what it is that makes me love this movie so much but I still find it funny, even though I've seen it around 20 times! I do hope E enjoys it, but even if she doesn't I will.

Having kids around this year will help make this next week feel alot more like Christmas, the excitement of Santa, the stories of Christmas and the opening of presents as well as the lashings of food. I can't wait to start feeling all festive and laughing at Gonzo and rizo the rat will be the cherry on top of the Ice Cream.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone.

Paternity, shamternity !

Change, it happens to all of us. Now I could easily write another post about how my life has drastically changed this year, from being a self minded singleton to drastically changing to being a father, a committed boyfriend and a responsible adult. But by writing a blog post about this I'd just be re-hashing what I've previously wrote.

Change is described as..... 1/ "to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone:"

This can be shown in my life recently as the birth of my baby daughter T. Now for those of you who read my blog last week, you'd know that 2 weeks ago was quite an emotional day and I'm so proud, and I still am, and can;t stop looking at my baby daughter with a sense of pride. I also can't stop looking at my girlfriend in the same look and smiling at her for what she had to go through.

The Change I want to write about this time however is about having to go back to work. Now as most guys know, paternity leave for Fathers is shockingly bad. I had 2 weeks off work. This is quite annoying and seems some what unfair for Dads. I don't to take anything away from mothers maternity leave etc as mothers do deserve longer than fathers, but I think for a father to only be able to take 2 weeks is shockingly bad. It's not my employers fault, as they have been extremely supportive and have enabled my leave to be flexible and relatively hassle free, its the government who need to address this problem. They constantly go on about a broken society and broken Britain, and broken family life. Well by starting at the basics and enabling families time to bond together in the right circumstances this might start to help address this problem.

I mean think about it, Fathers are expected to bond instantly with their child in 2 weeks and that everything with family life is back and in a routine in 2 weeks! Thats absurd! I mean how are you expected to get the mother and baby up to healthy, 100% feeling and into a routine in 2 weeks. Couple this in with the thousands of visitors you have in this time, its nigh on impossible.

I understand that when it comes to working the employer probably can't afford to pay for fathers to be off longer and the state can't afford fathers to be off for longer but surely there should be some sort of gradual plan to bring fathers back into working, like going back part time after 2 weeks then full time after a month would probably make a lot of dads more happier. Even more so, if you have multiple children.

In our case we have a 3 (nearly 4) year old, and a 2 week old baby. How is my girlfriend meant to cope by herself 5 days a week. We can't afford to send eldest daughter to nursery everyday, due to everything else in life raising costs. And we don;t have any family close by to help baby sitting duties etc so we are truly left on our own two feet. True there are lots of free clubs and play groups but these don't run everyday and convienant times or in convienant places for a mother who doesn't drive. Public transport isn't the best for singletons let alone for people with a pram and a toddler.

I do hope for all my readers this doesn't sound like me whinging and being shy of work, on the contory, I love my work and I work hard in my job, I just feel that, as Fathers we get a rough ride in this respect. I know mums will read this and think "oh dear god no change , having him round the house drives me crazy" But at least it shows that at the end of the day, now I've been back to work for the first time since the birth of my baby girl, I find it incredibly hard to be away from her, I mean look at these photos, how could you not find it hard to leave this.....

Wrapped round her little finger

SPOILER ALERT - This weeks post may seem a little mushy, normal order shall be restored next week, I promise!

So it's been around a week since my last post, here did I leave off, oh yes thats right, my girlfriend was in excruciating pain as she as having contractions. Now as much as I'd love to go into the in's and out's of all the fine details about the labour and some of the events that occurred, I don't think it's too appropriate, purely because I have already discussed the events with my girlfriend and It has become clear that although privately between us we may laugh at certain things *cough* needle *cough* injection *cough* unpleasant place *cough* that these things should not be discussed openly in public, so I shall respect that.

So it's been one week on and gladly my girlfriend successfully gave birth to our beautiful baby daughter. Our daughter was born on Friday morning missing her daddys birthday by 5 hours and 34 minutes, meaning that we don't share a birthday but they are pretty close. I was present the whole time of the birth and saw my daughter come into this world face upwards rather than the traditional sideways view. I saw this little blue colour being come into the world like an exterestrial alien coming in to invade the planet. Infact thats quite a good comparison because aliens come to change peoples lives in the movies and conquer earth and nothing is ever the same again, and that is pretty much what babies do. My life previously was self centred focused on myself and now it has drastically changed to nappies, feeding, cuddling and more nappies.

As I started down looking at my daughter halfway into this world I was still unsure what this baby was as me and my girlfriend had opted not to find out the gender in the scan and spent the remaining 5 months or so having people say, "Oh what are you having" "Oh I couldn't not find out, I mean how can you get prepared properly" as me and my girlfriend grin through our teeth thinking theres more colours than blue or pink!

My daughter was born a healthy 6lb 14oz she was placed on my girlfriends tummy and as I looked at her she opened her eyes. From that moment I knew that this creature, no matter how small and harmless looking, has power over me for the rest of her life (although I'd like to keep that a secret from her for as long as possible) She already has Daddy wrapped round her little finger, and although she had at that point only just breathed and opened her eyes, I remain the proudest daddy in the whole world and will always be proud of this little one everyday of my life.

Fatherhood for me truly begins now, and I am looking forward to it. I thrive on doing anything I can with her and it will pain me when I return to work and have to spent 8 hours away from her! She along with her mummy and big sister are my world. I'd often say to my friends that when Liverpool won the Champions League in 2005, that was the happiest day of my life. That has now been relegated to the second happiest, as the birth of my daughter now holds first position, er wait I should probably say the day I met my girlfriend is actually second place relegated 2005 to third.

My girlfriend is truly remarkable for what she has done. I may have joked a lot and said anyone could do childbirth but they can't. Evey woman who does it is truly remarkable and I love my girlfriend ever so much for having to go through what she has. The outcome is truly beautiful our gorgeous little girl, and I'd like to say worth the pain she suffered. I will always look at my girlfriend in a different light for hat she has done and been able to do, and I'll love her forever for doing so

So my baby girl is nearly a week old, that week has gone way to fast and I can see the coming weeks, months and years going by even faster. I'll cherish each memory made with my children, take as many photos as possible, cherish every hug and kiss and I love you daddy as if it were the last, and I will set out on the path of my ultimate goal of being the best daddy ever. Because I may be proud everyday of my life of my daughter but I also want her to be as equally proud of her Daddy.

Sorry Hospitals don't except TARDIS'

One of my last blog posts titled T-Minus 3 days and counting was written just over a week ago. I sit here, quite tired so my ability to string together coherent sentances might make for interesting reading. Now many people might think its due to have the new born baby in our lives, but the answer to this is no, not yet, unfortunately.

The baby is now 5 days over due and our best laid plans of sending away sister had to reversed yesterday due to us missing her and not wanting her to feel shunned away and left out. Then it happened, not like you see in movies. My girlfriend started having what she originally thought ere painful braxton hicks, these kept coming until 3 hours later we decided to call the labour ward who called us in.

In this panic we had to wake big sister up, ring her grandad to meet us at the hospital to collect her and take her back. We then got to the hospital and after a few tests and a short wait we were told to go home and try rest a bit there, this would be for the best.

After a few hours, a few hours sleep for me , zero hours sleep for my girlfriend, we called up the labour ward again to say the pain was increasing etc, again we were brought back to the hospital and stayed for a few hours and were told we are in early labour, and were told the best place would be to go home again as this stage could take hours, or even days! (God I hope not)

Now theres always lots of jokes about child birth can;t be that bad etc, but after seeing what my girlfriend is going through, the regular shoots of pain and not being able to sleep due to this I say this, Hat's off women, its look excruiating! And the worst thing for me is having to see her go through all this and knowing theres nothing I could do, I just have to be there for her, and it feels like a massive cop out that I can;t do much else than time the contractions and get her water, I feel bad. Earlier today she said make it stop, inbetween these contractions, I said the only thing I could do was to try build a time machine and go forward in time to when the baby is born, if I could I would, I'd build the Tardis!

The great thing about my girlfriend is she actually apologised to me, you might say what the hell for and you'd be right, she said sorry because all this was happening on my birthday. I laughed and told don't be so daft, if the baby came today it would be fantastic, but it doesn't matter about my birthday all that matters right now is her and the baby. So I shall leave you on this cliff hanger, hopefully shortly enough she will be through the pains of labour and she will be blogging herself about our new arrival, till then I bid you farewell.

Movember - Strike back of the Tasche!

So I thought it as about time to give an update of all things Tasche related ! The Mo is growing very nicely, the massive sideburns have now gone as I decided to update my tasche and perfect it halfway through the month. This is how it now looks.....

So, theres nothing else much to report on this front, money is still being brought in, my mum has done a fantastic job like she did last year getting all her work colleagues to sponsor my furry upper lip. So far I have raised around £50 and ok its not a huge amount at least it's something and every little penny helps with research.

So only 6 days to go till my furry friend will be shaved off, but as I see Tom Selleck on T.V with his tasche I find comfort knowing that I could stand next to Tom and shout, Tom me and you are men and we have moustaches!

I close my eyes......

So as my and my girlfriend were getting things ready for our impending arrival the other day I found out a secret about her that I never knew............

Whilst cleaning through this mess

My heart quickly sank as I found this.......

It's Jospeh's amazing technicolour dreamcoat! All these years poor Joesph had lost his coat and all along my girlfriend had been keeping it, now all together lets sing it for Joesph,
"I close my eyes, drew back the curtain
To see for certain, what I thought I knew

Far far away, someone was weeping
But the world was sleeping
Any dream will do"

T minus 3 days and counting......

So it's finally here, we are within our last week of pregnancy (hopefully) 3 days to be precise until the baby, our new addition to our little family is due. I'm sure many fathers can relate to this post. By what I am about to write I  hope I don;t sound like I'm whinging, quite the opposite, I can't wait to be a father and understand my girlfriend has had to deal with so much and love her deeply so for going through it all.

This week, this time is very scary, and horrible but as equally, weirdly, exciting. You may notice the words there, lets break them down. Firstly scary, why is this time scary? Well any day now, I will be a father for the first time. I am solely responsible, as well with my partner for the health and well being of another. This child will look up to me need me to care for it, feed it, bath it, cloth it, all round be responsible for it. This can be quite a scary though, couple that that the first couple years of the child's life it can't actually tell me what is wrong. I've looked after and worked with children before but they have always been able to communicate with me verbally, telling me when they needed feeding, when they weren't feeling well. For these reasons alone this time is scary as the ticking clock draws nearer.

However it is also scary to know that soon enough my girlfriend will be screaming all sorts of obscenities towards me accusing me of doing all this to her, and then knowing that in some way she will be plotting her revenge ;)

Ok so the next word, Horrible. Why is this time horrible? For this sole reason, and I hope other Dad's felt like this. Picture the scene, your sitting comfortably on the couch with your heavily pregnant loved one. She then winces in pain, you jump up saying are you ok? is it contractions? shall I get the car ready, already halfway out the door with your jacket on clutching the hospital bag that resembles something more like you used when you went bag packing for 6 months, than a simple bag to take to the hospital. Your girlfriend then smiles and goes no, I just had a pain in my big toe. At this point the man wants to say, I don't care about your big toe, I thought you were going into labour!!!!! This time is also horrible as everytime you are not with your partner and your phone starts ringing you are again, halfway out the door with your coat on just to realise the person on the other end of the phone is someone trying to sell you a credit card or something, and you have to muster all your strength to politely tell them where to go.

Lastly exciting. Well this needs no real explanation. It is such an exciting time to know that any day soon, our baby who my girlfriend has carefully looked after and loved and had to carry around for the last 9 months will be here ready to meet everyone, meet her eagerly waiting big sister and her nanny and Nana and grandpa's and most importantly in my eyes meet me, My girlfriend has had 9 months getting to know the baby and feels this fantastic connection, and even though I often speak to the baby and feel its twists it turns and its kicks and punches, I will feel an even deeper connection when I get to hold my child in my arms for the first time and see there little face, this will make all the times I've jumped towards the car and revenge my girlfriend will throw at me all worthwhile.

But then you think, I've passed my DNA on to an unsuspecting world, what have I done......

AKA....What A Life!

Working the other day, I was tidying my desk, clearing out some old things. Then I came past an old work diary. As I quickly checked it I saw my year planner and it hit home to me just how much my life has changed in the last year.

Just last year these were the things I was planning/spending my hard earned money on:

• Holiday to Dallas (by myself)
• Leeds Festival Tickets
• Glastonbury Tickets
• Hotels for weekends away for lads weekends
• Liverpool Tickets for most home games.
• Beer
• CD's / DVD's
• The latest PS3 Games

Fast forward a year and this is what my money largely goes on now:

• Rent
• Bills (Gas,Electricity/Water)
• Council Tax (A major gripe of mine)
• Food
• Petrol

It's when I see this vast difference it hits home to me. Now I'm not complaining, in fact I am overjoyed at the prospect of soon becoming a Dad (and by soon I mean it's T - 6 days and counting until Bumps due date) But it was interesting to see this huge difference, it's not like I still don't enjoy myself, and don't spend money on myself or treat myself, it just seems that within the short space of a year I've matured dramatically and actually became something I've been putting off for years, a responsible adult, well most of the time, as I sit typing this I am watching Thundercats on T.V , not because my girlfriends 3 year daughter (who I recently managed to convert into the world of Thundercats) is sat in the living room, as she is staying at her Nanny's this week, but because I want to watch it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this, although on paper this time last year my plans for life and what I spent my money on and did were interesting and seemed great, I wouldn't trade it for what I have now. I'd love to one day when the kids are older and grown up to re pack my travelling bag and go travelling with my girlfriend and explore the places I haven't yet seen.

I enjoyed what seems like a previous life travelling, going places by myself and generally wasting my money and being selfish on myself, but now I have 3 other people to think of before me, 3 people who I dearly love and when I've had a hard day at work seem to make it all worth while, plus I'm looking forward more to the adventure that ensues ahead of successfully raising a healthy family.

So it's T-Minus 6 days until baby is due, my next post will focus more on the looming worries of Fatherhood! Tick Tock goes the fatherhood clock......

Movember

It is now 8 days into the month formally known as November, for those of you questioning what has happened to November, it's name has changed to Movember. You may have thought the world has gone crazy if you've stepped out your house and noticed many men sporting a furry upper lip. This is what Movember has done, it's a way for men to help make more men aware of male illness's and cancers such as prostate and testicular, cancers which kill so many men, yet in most cases are easily curable. Check the Movember website out here for more details and you can donate here

It's been shown in recent years that promoting awareness helps, look at what women do with the run for life where women run 10k to raise breast cancer awareness or the tinkled pink promotion where they ask people to wear pink etc. For men it's simple the whole month of November you grow a Mo, a moustache. Simple, start 1st Movember freshly shaven and then let everyone see that you can grow facial hair, that you are a man! Women can also bet involved, by supporting men, drawing a moustache on at events etc, as men who participate are called Mo Bro's, women are called Mo' Sisters. Obviously different peoples ability to grow facial hair dictates on there success/humiliation factor, but at the end of the day they are trying, are you? Well heres my effort so far.....

Movember is there to raise money for research into Men's cancers and to, maybe most importantly to encourage men to go see there doctors for a simple check up. Men statistically fail to do this, as men we often notice something may not be right with our health and shy away and neglect it, hoping that if we forget about it then it'll go away, but you know what guys, this is down right stupid, we can't do this, this is playing with your own life, your own health, probably both physically and mentally.

Let me give you an example. When I was around 15, I noticed a lump. Now being that age, I was scared, even more so because it was on one of my testicles. I wasn't sure what to do, so I ignored it, I didn't tell anyone, I didn't try to speak to my doctor, I was defiantly not going to speak to my parents or my friends. At 15 I thought the best thing to do was try forget about it, surely it was nothing and after a couple of days it would go away, life would go on as usual and I'd carry on like nothing ever happened. But guess what, it didn't go away, I would often think and worry about it thinking that something was wrong with me, it was my fault this had happened, it was something I had done or I was weird and if anyone found out they would laugh at me.

I let this go on for 3 years, Knowing full well that this could be something serious, that it could possibly be the Big C. After 3 years I'd decided enough was enough, I'm being stupid and playing Russian roulette with my own life not knowing, and knew that there was only one thing to do. So I made an appointment with my Doctor, within 5 minutes of breaking down to the doctor and being checked I was assured that it wasn't cancerous and more that likely a simple Cyst that wouldn't affect me. They did thorough testing and within the week the results came back as clear. Overnight relief for something I had worried about for over 3 years, so how stupid had I been.

I often think that them 3 years of my life, the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the worry could've been easily avoided had I simply seen my doctor. After all they are qualified to help, they are professional people who won't laugh at me, snigger behind my back, or tell the whole town about me. But you know what the worst thing was, having to tell my own mother that for 3 years I had been so stupid with my health, having to tell my family who only care and want the best for me that something so simple could've been put to bed so easily. That even if the lump was cancerous that chances are early detection would've been successful and that by me putting it off I risked that success rate.

I could never imagine putting my loved ones through that again and so every Movember, I pledge to grow a Mo, raise some money, make men more aware of their health and most importantly get myself a check up, and if in the rest of the year I notice something is wrong, I'll be making an appointment straight away.

So this is why Movember means a lot to me, I support any charity that supports men's health because although I have been incredibly lucky in my story that unfortunately somewhere another guy is doing exactly what I did all those years ago, and risking his life and being stupid and foolish. Guys if you notice something is wrong go see your Doctor. Get a check up every year, it doesn't take long, because if you don't you might be playing Russian Roulette with your own life.

So once again please donate to help raise awareness and help to find treatments. You can donate here
Thank you.

WooHoo ! Time to Blog !

Well Hello Internet and Bloggers !!!!!

This is officially my first ever blog, oh dear what have I done? More importantly what do I write? I guess the best place to start is by introducing myself. Well I am currently 26 years and 343 days old (what kind of adult counts the days?) It sounds better than nearly 27! My life so far has basically been all about me, I previously in life went where I wanted, when I wanted, for as long as I wanted. I have had stints living in Durham, Liverpool, Minnesota,Dallas and Leeds.

My life drastically changed for the better early this year though when I met a very beautiful young women, who after a short courtship is my girlfriend, my housemate and the mother of our soon to born child. With her into my life she brought her 3 year daughter who, at times is quirky and weird is certainly a very lovable and when she wants to be cute child. I should add here that whilst fatherdom is upon me, it is quite a scary time. I have a fantastic mother and 2 sisters, a father I haven't spoken to for 3 years with good reason. Only one of my friends currently has children. So the idea of being a father is very much exciting but worrying that there is not many people I can console for advice, In this respect I have two fathers I look upto my grandfather who sadly is no longer with us and a kind of surrogate father from my time living in Texas, he always had time for his children, whether they be step children, adopted children or his own children he had time, which I guess is what I aim for.

All this means that from my very selfish life I've had to grow a little mature (I certainly wouldn't want to become mature before my expiry date), sensible with my finances and most importantly a good partner and I guess father. Who would have guessed my life would have turned out this way when the bells chimed in 2011 as I sang Queens Bohemian Rhapsody at my good friend Sleazy Jon's New Years Party!

So why am I blogging? It's not like I'm famous or anything. Well the answer purely is I'm not sure. It seemed like a good idea. My girlfriend has for the last 5 months been blogging herself, shameless plug about happen check her blog here . She is wonderfully talented at it and seems to get some sort of comfort from it as it helps her express herself and open up a lot more. I tend to read every post she does and I've seen how she looks after shes spent hours creating her posts and editing them, she seems content and happy and smug, but in a good way. I felt that I don't want to tread on her toes but it seems like a wonderful idea, something that I could do and hopefully be good at it. Also as much as I always try to look forward in life I see this as a great way to keep track of yourself see where you've come from and I think it would be fascinating or cringe worthy to read in a couple of years and I love the idea of my children being able to read something that I wrote 20 years ago.

So in a nutshell my life revolves around my girlfriend, her daughter, our soon to be born child, whom we all have given our own nickname of being called the Pooheads, I naturally being the father of the family am referred to as Biggest Poohead, my girlfriend, Big poohead, Girlfriends Daughter is little poohead and the unborn baby is already and has been shouted through the womb as baby poohead by at some point in the last 8 months all 3 of us. As well as these 3 very lovable characters theres my gang of friends who I try have frequent adventures with that I'm sure in future stories you will all grow to love.

So what will I write about? again who knows? The loves of my life are Liverpool Football Club, My family, Cricket, Music and having adventures, so these all seem pretty good and very expandable topics that will enable me to go off on many tangents. I hope that on the way I can make you laugh and cry with bad spelling, grammar and stories of my life. I promise I will try to be as interesting as possible and if you want to throw any advice my way feel free to do so.

Cheers.