After The Party's Over

Hey everyone! sorry I haven't been posting but a couple of things have been keeping me busy.


First off, when I came back from my holiday, I had a major problem which prevented me from posting.......My dear computer crashed beyond retrieval so i had to fork out £40 for a new hard drive (not the nicest thing to do when youve come back from a relaxing holiday)


Anyway, its now working fine and im back to blogging.

This gentleman next to me is my mate in Lincoln, Gary. Here we are about to order dinner from a very nice pub restaurant with two other friends, in a rare occassion i was able to match appetites with him (but only just!)

Yes, I went back to Lincoln, Don't know quite what it is about the place but something about it makes me keep going back over and over again.


Secondly, a few weeks after coming back I ended up partying again!


Yes I Know I'm putting a little weight on, but frankly, given what I was like when I was younger (thin as a beanpole and hardly ate anything!) I dont really mind!

No! im not pissed in the bottom left photo I always close my eyes before a picture because i end up with red-eye!

In fact I was a very good lad and left them to it at 11:30pm as I had work the next day! The poor guy in the top right however had work, he looked like death warmed up and probably felt worse!

A Birthday To Remember

Well time for some scary news........In less than two weeks time I'll be 25!

Yup 25! I must confess I can't quite believe it myself, to have reached the first quarter of the hope-to-reach century!

Given my family history, I haven't really thought much about growing old, the mere fact scares the living daylights out of me! I prefer to focus on the here and now, I'll worry about the future when I have to!!!!

Still, 25! a nice easy to remember number and in fact I'm stretching this one as far as I can, although my birthday isn't until the Saturday, I'm starting it from payday, the 13th September and working it till the 23rd! in fact it works like this:

Payday: Thursday 13th September
Day off: Friday 14th September
Birthday: Saturday 15th September
Party!: Sunday 16th September
Holiday: Monday 17th September

Cool eh? looking forward to it!

Summer Holidays Abound!!!!

Well it's been a while but I'm back!

One of the things about working so hard (ok, stop hissing back there I know some people work harder) is that you can appreciated the free time you get and in my case i decided to get away from it all.....

.....To Lincoln! Yeah yeah! classy I know but hey! decent enough weather and a limited budget requires I stick to this country and enjoy its sights and sounds

Anyway, I hit trouble almost immediately, due to the lovely weather that Britain has been enjoying, my train was cancelled and nearly `De-railed` the entire holiday! however my mates up in Lincoln refused to let things end there, they travelled the odd 260 miles and came and picked me up! (however this did entail a £60 petrol charge to yours truly but hey! part of the fun is the surprises isn't it?)

Well, Lincoln is certainly a different place to teignmouth, many of the buildings in the city center are medieval in appearance but they blend in with many of the more modern features around the city. What struck me was the fact that the railway is an integral part of the city, throughout the city there are level crossings that require patience and skill to cross

Of course the most wonderful part of the city is the great cathedral, high on a hill (which is a murder to climb)

This is the entrance arch to the cathedral, as you can see it makes for a beautiful site, and the following pictures show even more of the outside:

Film buffs will recognise some of the interior shots from the Tom Hanks film The Da Vinci Code In fact a few of the props are still there and unless you were really looking, you'd swear they were real headstones (in fact they were plywood, polystyrene and fibreglass)

The main entrance to the cathedral proper is a cavernous hall and filled with beautiful stained glass windows which when the sun hits them leave wondrous patterns of colour!

I enjoyed my week in lincoln, though i will point out that you cant really fit everything into a week, so perhaps id better make a second visit!

Time For A Holiday!

Well summer's getting closer and so its time for the holidays to begin!

Already people have begun to flock down here to Teignmouth in their hundreds and as such the place is getting crowded!

I have no objections as such to tourists, they bring much needed funds to the area, but I do wish they would do the following:

• Remember that the residents have been here for a lot longer than three minutes and as such are not all as thick as mud! Some of us actually do have brains and would not mind a small amount of courtesy when they barge into us!
  
• Use the car parks responsibly! Too often when I'm working I have complaints that the car parks are full to capacity and that the number of tourists are disproportionate to the number of shoppers in the store! Last time I checked there is plenty of off the street parking near the beach and at the local coach station, why can't they use this?


• Please keep their children under control! Ok, Ok ! know kids are difficult at best of times but you'd think standing there watching their kids running riot was a good way of dealing with them the number of times I've done their job and told the kids off for running around and screaming at each other!

There! Rant over! Now to enjoy the holidays!

Personally I intend to expand my photo collection a bit and take some photos of the surrounding countryside, maybe even scare the tourists away by showing off my legs and body down on the beach! HAHA!

N.B. This is not Teignmouth at sunset, though I wish it was!

My Seaside Kingdom

This is view of Teignmouth sea front, it was taken last year when the weather was mercifully clear and in my humblest of opinions it shows the beauty of the seaside town I inhabit.

I have lived in Teignmouth since April 1991 when I moved here with my parents and my aunt.

We moved here from Bristol in order to give my father a few more years of life due to his failing health. Since then I have always considered this my home and never looked back.

The two Pictures above both show parts of the coast line facing the opposite direction to the previous picture, The second photo shows in silhouette one of Teignmouths attractions; namely the grand pier.

Here's me out on an observation platform with the main industry of Teignmouth in the background....Tourism.





Teignmouth becomes a maddening place from about April/May and doesn't calm down til September when the new school year starts.





Personally I hate that time of year, simply because it makes the town extremely crowded and means that If you want to park you gotta fight for it!

As You can see from the photos, Teignmouth has some beautiful streets and as such can be considered by many as `quaint` it may not seem like much to many but I consider it home.

A Night On The Tiles

Yes that's me smiling! I'm actually enjoying one of my rare nights out.

I'm not normally a social butterfly, in fact I only started to go out on evenings about three months ago after I enjoyed the christmas party that our work place threw back in December '06.

Being a social misfit I never realised what fun going out could actually be! but my mates Ben and Lee started this after I made a new years resolution to develop a social life and they have ensured that I keep to my promise!

Generally, we start out at one pub and all chip in a minium of £20 to a `booze kitty` that we entrust to Lee, then he gets our drinks in and the fun starts!

The first occasion I went out with them I made the mistake of trying to keep up with them and eneded up so drunk I was sick in the taxi back! (yuk!)

This time I managed to learn my lesson and in fact I insisted on havind water at least twice during our night out. (much to the disgruntlement of the others!)

Here's some shots of big Lee playing pool against my other mate Ben, as you can see Lee is quite the player and has been known to go on quite the winning streak when he gets started!

Because I don't normally drink i'm generally the last one to finish my drink and as such I earned myself the nickname `speedy` but frankly I tend to go out more for the company than the booze!

I suppose that you would like to know if I have any photos of me at the christmas party.....Well I do! and so i suppose I'd better trot those out!



You might recognise one of these ladies from my earlier posts, Yes thats right it's Carly from `me and my mates`! the young lady with her is Tasha, another of the staff at our `beloved` co-op, she is usually to be found at the kiosk and is always very friendly to all the customers and staff alike!





its a rare occasion that we can get a photo of her so I must have been very sneaky to get one here either that or she had had far too much to drink!



Aren't I the babe magnet!? Once again it took a few drinks to get this shot and it was meant as a bit of a joke! I look like I'm about to strangle poor Tash! just wanted to make sure she didn't escape ha ha!

I must admit im getting used to going out now but will be sticking to once a month for a while! I don't think my wallet could take the strain!

Changing Times

Those of you who have been following this blog (and if you haven't why not?) may notice a slight change to my appearance in these photos (no prizes for guessing what).

Before I get the inevitable comments, I will point out that I have not lost my marbles (not yet anyway) merely felt like changing my appearence and besides, I prefer the pic on the right of me without my goatee as it makes me look a few years younger.

I always get my hair cut every 6/8 weeks cos after that it starts to curl and then it really becomes a tangled mess and takes AGES to tidy up and I kind of made a promise to a very good friend that when I cut my hair this time I would shave the goatee off and see if I could live without it! So far so good but it feels strange not to have it there! and I've had to relearn how to do a complete facial shave (not easy for me to do as I have lived with a goatee since I was 17).

The only thing is that i've also had to point it out to my work mates because most of them wouldn't notice if I'd dyed my hair bright blue (!) and they've mostly liked it because of the above comment that it makes me look younger, personally it's a mixed blessing because although now I look younger it means I might get ID'ed when I go o the pub with my mates! Still a compliment is a compliment! :-)

The other thing that prompted the change was that after two years (finally!) i've managed to clear my final debt arrears and I now am completely debt free and H-A-P-P-Y! so now it's out with the old and in with the new!