First ever car crash !!!!

Yep im forty and i have never had a car crash nop well not until today and to be fair i didnt hit anyone someone slammed into me....but and I stuggle to say this it may have been slightly my fault but of course I will do my utmost to deny it..when the insurance companies get involved...

For the record it was at the A5111 and A6 Junction as you leave Alvaston, I was inthe furthest left lane of 3 intending to take the 2nd exit off, but some one flew onto the roundabout on my outside in the middle available lane and as i went straight on they turned left, slamming into me and forcing me to take the left turn and knocking out my R/Lamp set, well the glass anyway, its still all works etc but has no glass.



I was the one in the middle.....

Even so worth mentioning as I have never had one before. I blame her of course and she will blame me....i may lose but i will fight as she was doing well over the speed limit for a junction of that kind and she made no, ill say it again no attempt to stop, its as if she didnt even see me...no screeching brakes no skiiding no horn nothing ....just SLAM!!!!....

Oblivious to other roads users, also she is the 2nd driver so wont be fully insured, her husband is the fully insured driver he was not in the car...

No-one was hurt, funny thing though is that I work for a contractor that manages the road i crashed on so they would have designed the junction and built it, i will when next in work establish if the lane i was in was only for left turners if so I may concede and accept that i was wrong even so....a major pain in the butt for me at the moment.

Ho hum.

laterz.

Gloss Black kitchen completed...love it...

Here it is at last.....



Yes the kitchen has finally been finished, stuck up the last of the shelves tonight and the fitter left this afternoon, so we opened the champagne and had a sip after all the hard work, tears frustration and worry, its a big deal i mean weve been without water for alot of it and going up and down the stairs to get water from the bathroom loses its appeal real quick let me tell ya.





It is lush compared to what we had before it is stunning, we were lucky today someone came around who was interested in the old cooker we were selling and they took all 3 items for £150 notes....none of it had been cleaned or anything...amazing...but i guess it saved em a penny or two.





Anyway our fitter was Chris Pether and his son, they have done a fantastic job and we will use there services again if we get the chance thats for sure, the kitchen was from magnet and it has to be said they were fanatstic right from the atart although to be fair we got a £12,000 kitchen for £6000 as we were able to use someones trade account......





We have been very lucky throughout the kitchen fiasco as we nearly went with and paid MFI, just before they went bust there kitchen was going to be £7500, we even got our deposit back from them £1,500 after waiting a month....





All in all, we are over the moon....im starving lets eat!!!!!

I promise no more pictures ever....bored now...

Tickets to New Zealand. AArrgggghhh!!!!

Well, there we were just sitting there chatting about our dreams of moving to NZ (which I have another blog for) and then as if by majic we had just splashed out and spent -

£2223.20 on two return tickets to Auckland from London via Hong kong with Air new Zealand...Jesus christ dont ya just love life...when you act in the moment....

More detail is on my NZ Blog, but it was done because we need to see the place first, it is expensive but our justification comes in the form of lines like -

''well it will be our only holiday of the year'' or
''well well save up before we go so it will be paid for before we leave'' and
'' well eat sandwiches at work and saved like bitches....'' which is all bollocks really...

The reality is we panicked and clicked the mouse button (looked silently at each other for about 3 seconds.... ooops...oh dear...er no refunds oh...ha ha yehhaa..yes lets do it...wahhhooo....

life just lovin at mo..

Laterz..

The Kitchen completion thunders forward....

And to think its my design too, if ever I fancied myself as a house makeover artists then I reckon I've got talent in that area....here are a few pics from day 3....of the fitters being here.



its even better than I imagined but also slightly different than had imagined as well, things don't fir as you expected them to and more often than not you find that you have over compensated for sizes so when its up it seems more roomy than you expected. anyway anyway...



Oh just for the record, this is a Magnet kitchen designed by me, it was bought on trade account from another company called Pegasus they did our boiler, the discount we got being a trade customer was on average %66 across the board on all items required even the appliances...the kitchen would have cost at retail prices £12,500 but we got it for £6000 excluding fitting.



I cannot recommend Magnet enough they were by far the best company we approached even in the early days of kitchen dreaming...there service has been exceptional and we do recommend them...although they are more expensive...in this case you get what you pay for....

Magnet have been superb.

Pics.





Oak Tops of course...





Cant wait for the end of the week...

In for the long run.....(relationship)

No not running, women.....

I have moved in with one, something I have been terrified of doing for years if im honest, I have met Stephanie Jukes in December 2007...I have been dating her since then but we have lived seperatly I was living in Radcliffe Nottingham and she in Alvaston Derby.

We have had a great year and as 2008 came to a close we started dreaming of emigrating to NZ this application (as we are not married) means we have to live together and have proof of doing so for at least a year.

The emigration asperations were not the reason it was also the cost of driving back and forth to Derby constantly costing me in me old car about an extra £150 a month...

So I have moved in with her December 2008..and as said not something I accepted easily being so dammed independant.

As it has turned out im loving it, and for the record living with someone else is so much cheaper as well, again not the reason...for the record I am so much happier settling in with someone and not fighting out there alone....




So weve been together for a year or so now and it feels like it could be for a while....

Its just not as bad as expected.

Kitchen gets an oven...no more fast food....!!

On with the house makeover, which to be fair is getting a tad boring and ardous..but atleast the kitchen has a new cooker and it even came with a new cook as well, so no more microwave meals for me or take aways the cook will sort it...heh heh..




The Cook...



The removed doorway and colur scheme...



The cook.....looks shifty...



The lights? why this sort, Stephanie is in to theatre and they were going cheap...

Loving this glow from the back wall in the evenings...the £6000 kitchen due on the 10th of Jan, completed hopefully by the end of next week....hope it all goes to plan...

Laterz.

Connemarathon March 2009

This will be my third and absolutely I promise final marathon, why my last? Well their to long .... 26.2 miles is simply to long really ha ha...

I prefer the Half Marathon distance if honest, and the last year could be classed as my Marathon period of running done only to see if I could really achieve it within only two years of starting running... and I can I've done it twice in fact .. and one more to add to that...legendary really...

Also I want to start a new sport of Long Distance Road Cycling, similar in my view but you get to sit down for a bit...seems a better deal in my view with my older (post 40) age coming along swiftly ha ha... but I will keep me running going on the side lines...



The best way to learn about the Connermarathon is to look at the web page -

http://www.connemarathon.com/

The Marathon for 2009 is full and you can only run at the time of writing, for a charity, the location is stunning in the challenging mountain wilderness of Galway in the west of Ireland. The course meanders past bogs, hills, lakes, and the Twelve Pin mountains rising up over the great expanse of Killary Lough, through the quiet village of Leenane, around the Maam Turk Mountains and all the way back up to Maam Cross.

Its a stunning location and as we did with the Loch Ness Marathon weekend, we (me and Stephanie) will be making a mini holiday out of it but as money is being saved for other more exciting things were only going over for the long weekend, we as usual have done it on the cheap, were booked into a cheap hostel and we have got cheap flights from EMA (East Mid Airport) to Knock. When were there we will get a small rental car and have a blast rallying through the lanes of Ireland as we did in Loch Ness...which was a blast...

Anyway I hope as its my last Marathon to get my best time my previous best time is
03:50:11 secs...and this is the target. I hope to get -

Sub - 3:40:00 (8:30 mile pace)....

The race is on the 22ND of March and my training has been limited so far but as the new year comes along so does the new training regime which will assist in losing all of those Xmas calories...today I have weighed myself and I am the heaviest I have been for 2 years...15.1 stone...when I ran 3:50 I was 14.2 stone...so I am looking forward to losing weight as well...

I have to mention that Stephanie my OH is also going and the event is even bigger for her as it is her very first Marathon which will be a tremendous and possibly tearful experience for her as she crosses the line...I wish her all the best...

Its an awesome area of Ireland here's some pics..



Looks like an awesome run....they actually ban ipods at this event...I reckon that's a good policy...



I am looking forward to the weekend for more than just the race as it's our first visit to Ireland. Hopefully at some point well make it to the bars of Galway to get involved with a sing along somewhere.....where's me dam guitar...

There are some that regard this event as over priced, it was £50 to enter this event and I do feel that's a little steep but I will hold back until after the event and then comment on the wether it was good value or not, but on side note I do think that private companies are cashing in by over pricing entrance fee's in a essentially free and basic sport of late, under the illusion of high organisational costs and charitable schemes, but are always unwilling to show where the money has gone....I have started to get more interested in Fell running for this reason alone its back to basics again as it should be...and cheaper with just as much fun if not more..

So training starts for real in the new year...sod it ill start tomorrow, yep that's it, those scales have frightened the hell out of me.... over 15 stone are you sure!!!

Let the training begin...



When I was 14.1 stone (May 2008) not 15.1....!!!! shocking really...fat sod..