Moving here, there and everywhere

It’s possibly about time and worth an update. The weekend involved moving heaps of furniture and boxes from my house and my in-laws house to our newly acquired storage unit.

Picked up the van on Saturday morning from Halesowen Self Drive, nice chaps, reasonable prices. We had a Luton van with tail lift, rather than a larger van, but looking back I’m pretty sure all the furniture would have fitted in a regular van, although it might have had to be packed better.

The kiddies were dispatched with Aunty Jo, Uncle Rob and Grace to Sandwell Park Farm in West Bromwich, which left the missus, my Father In-Law and my Old Man (despite me telling him he didn’t have to because of his dodgy knees).

We finished unloading the first load at about 1.30pm, a pretty good job well done and still plenty of space in the storage unit thank goodness. We later returned to my house, packed up our bed and the kids bed and took them to the In-Laws so we would now have a new base of operations. This will help in the coming weeks, so we can go back to our house each night and pack what’s left.

And what’s left appears to be a lot, no matter how much we shifted at the weekend, I still look at our house and cry. How we have accumulated so much stuff I will never know, I just hope we can get through it all and ditch the rubbish.

On Sunday, we had a much more relaxing day, although suffering with a cold, I returned the van to Halesowen and took my bike out and met Rob and Daz for our usual Sunday morning ride. We took it pretty easy and went towards Hagley and Stourbridge before returning to Halesowen for a well earned Sausage and Egg McMuffin.
After that it was back home and played with the kids outside for a bit before going back to our house to get some clothes for the working week. The missus then decided to tell me that she had home visits on Monday so would need the car. Which was fine, just meant that I had to get on the bike again today, which was a bit of a struggle…I blame the cold.

And here we are. Another fun day ahead…only a few more of those to go. Finishing on Friday

Training Ride - What would mother have thought...

Yes, my gift to my darling wife and mother of my two children was some quality time with them while I scarpered out on my bike! Fear not, it had all been pre-orchestrated and booked, although perhaps I was back a little later than anticipated. But I'm not going to suddenly magic in to condition for this 100km ride.

Started out at 7am with my usual quandary of how many layers and what type of clothes to wear. Initially I walked out of the house with thermal gloves, but then for some reason ditched them, left them in the house as opposed to carrying them with me and left with my full fingered goves. And I also wore my extra special cycling socks which as you can imagine let the air flow around your feet easier, and also of course, in cold weather makes your feet freezing.

It wasn't long, roughly 5 minutes before I knew I'd made the wrong decision. But I'm a man and I stick by my wrong decisions!

Met up with Rob, Ian and Daz and quickly agreed our route. Ended up being quite a nice day, headed towards Bromsgrove and tried to lay low from all the pro cyclists out there, but it is great to see so many out on days like yesterday.

I am quickly coming to terms with the fact that no matter which way we ride, we will face hills. I'd rather tackle them early, but there's no chance. Looks like I live on a rige 200m above sea level and everywhere else is just under 50m.

Ended up doing 35 miles, which was probably 7 or 8 more than we're used to, but as time wasn't a great factor it was worth it. Saying that, some of the boys were looking panicky at 10.20am when were only at McDonald's in Longbridge.

I really need to sort out our sunday breakfast, all the coffee shops are usually closed though, so it leaves us without much of an option. I doubt MaccyD's breakfasts are particularly healthy, but they do give you a little kick.

We now have less than 2 weeks to go until event day. Tomorrow I will be posting about the fundraising aspect of the ride, as I have a few thoughts on the matter.

It's Official

I have resigned as Events Fundraiser for Focus Birmingham, my last day will be the 16th April. I've been ridiculously nervous about handing my notice in, but it's done now. I don't think too many people will be surprised. I'll be moving back to Perth, Western Australia (the place I learnt to call home) and I am so excited. Having moved there in 2004, it took a few years to settle before being yanked back home. I'm glad I've been here for the last 3 years to spend time with mum, but now is the time to move back and do what's right for my family.

I'm encouraging my dad and my sister to come and spend some time with us and I really hope they will as they are the only thing stopping us. I can't believe it though, we're on our way. Excitement city! Which is ironic as Perth as been known as Dullesville.

Oh, but I can't wait, feels like I've been released from my shackles of the last few years and now can finall yget our life back on track!

Time for a change

Tonight was the Guitar Hero fundraiser. And let's face it, it sucked.

And I have to ask the question why. And the answer boils down to me. Firstly I've lost any motivation I had, secondly, I just don't have the energy to engage with people and thirdly, I'm just not cut out for this job.

Right now, I can't wait to hand my notice in. I have one more event planned in March which is equally crazy and therefore I really can't see me drumming up enough support to make it worth it, so I'm really wondering what the point of doing it is.

I'm planning on resigning on the 9th March as my line manager will be back from her trip then and we're scheduled for a one to one. Will be awkward, but it has to be done. I do enjoy organising and managing events, but I just have a real problem getting people to them.

Andy sucks.

Looking Back

Now that this blog is private it gives me a chance to be open and show my feelings I guess. That's a problem I have with Twitter, I have met many different kinds of people, some that I can pour my heart out to, others that are professional contacts and probably shouldn't be reading what's happening in my personal life.

Anyway, today I told my Dad that Mrs K (my missus) had been offered a job starting 31st May and that we'd be looking at moving in early May. It's best to drip feed my family this info, they've never been good handling change. They usually come to a decision after months and months of deliberation...I'm a bit of a black sheep, and impulsive.

Dad took it as well as he good. Yet, this big slab of enormous guilt came slamming down on me. Here's a man that's just lost his wife, the bedrock of his world and his son is now abandoning him with his two grandchildren. Of course, I am pushing like crazy to get my Dad to come out with us and he's quite positive about it. But like I said, he'll take months and months to come to a decision. I know there are complications, but complications are obstacles, you figure a way to get over them.

So tonight I had a quick look back. Memories of mum and of friends in Australia came to mind and the last visit mum and dad made to meet Noah in 2006.

I never had an amazing relationship with my parents. As I grew up, I realised that I was very different to them. I thought differently and I acted differently. I can't imagine what they must have thought when I first told them I was emigrating, I guess if my kids ever make a similar decision I'll find out what it's like.

But in 2006, I had the best holiday ever. Mum and Dad had already visited Perth the year before and done a lot of the touristy stuff. So this time we decided to book a few days down south in Margaret River. It's a gorgeous place about 3hrs drive south of Perth. It's famous for it's wineries and it's incredibly picturesque.

We stayed in this lovely little cottage overlooking the ocean. The weather was windy and cold. But I felt so at peace. Noah was just a couple of months old and I didn't have a care in the world. Dad was in his element stoking the fire. It was just perfect. My memory has never been a strong point, but I have the photos and I hope I never forget that holiday.

It's quiet in Birmingham

Over a week since my last private blog. Well, that's mainly because I haven't really achieved much or done anything of note.

The Guitar Hero Gig is tomorrow. I've got all the gear and although I didn't actually test it yesterday, Joel assures me it'll all work. It is his tv and the Wii does work, so what more can I do. Will get down there early just to make sure.

Looks like my stand-in Line Manager (who happens to be the stand-in CEO) is coming along for an hour, probably to scout out just how crap her Events Fundraiser is...not to worry. The plan is to hand in my resignation next week.

Monday we completed our Police Checks and sent those off, last night we began the Visa application and next week we'll have the Medical, which will cost us £260 each, which if it's as bad as the last one will be a big waste of money.


I'm a little worried about the Visa application, obviously, I had to state that I'd had Testicular Cancer and will require follow-up visits to the hospital, although these are only 6 monthly and nothing more than the odd CT scan and blood tests. Hopefully, the application will be read by a real person and not a simple machine.


It's a busy weekend of sport ahead, England vs Ireland in the Six Nations and then the carling cup Final which I will be glued to the tv for. I don't hold big hopes for Villa but on our day we can do the job. It would be nice to squeeze a bike ride in as well, but we'll see. Finally it appears the snow has gone so here's for a few days of early Spring please...

Not the most interesting of entries, sorry

Reading back my blog posts I’ve realised that they’re quite personal and I wonder how much I should be sharing in them. I do find it useful though as a tool to let my feelings out. Writing this now, I realise that the blog has to remain private and although I’ll be happy to talk about work stuff and the things I get up to I believe that they need to be more professionally maintained.

The original idea of the blog was to highlight the events that I run and build up a bit of momentum, that’s a bit difficult to do if I personalise it too much. So from here on in, I’ll look to update on the events on a separate blog…not that I need to worry too much as I calculated I’ll be moving to Australia in 11 weeks and the plan is not to get another charity job.

So what is today’s blog about? I’m at home today, half working, half trying to gather my thoughts. And as I was grilling sausages and making a cup of tea I actually stopped and the reality of mum’s death hit me.

For so long I took it as inevitable that she was going to die. She had a glioblastoma multiforme, a brain tumour that was never going to repair itself. I used to get so frustrated that she wasn’t fighting it as hard as she could do, but it wasn’t me that it was affecting. At least mum was comfortable and at least she had dad to care for her. I now know that neither of them would have had it any other way. Whilst I hope I am never a burden to my wife I would hope that she would care for me just the way Dad did. When you’re suffering, who do you want with you? The person you love.

When I think about the last 6 months, I know mum was struggling, but she never wanted to be ill, she never wanted to feel the way she did. She wanted to be a mother and grandmother and those opportunities were wrestled away from her. Perhaps I feel cheated, perhaps I just don’t understand and can’t quite get my head around it. Mum has gone. Yes I have wonderful memories, and yes I have the wonderful photos that we took of her in Australia a few years earlier. But it doesn’t help me feel that I wasted the time I had with her.

I don’t want to be depressed thinking about it. And as someone that believes in God I believe that she’s now at peace, but sometimes that makes it worse, because while I’m happy that she’s not suffering, it’s what we all wanted while she was still alive.

So today is a rough day emotionally wise. It’s so easy to just slip back in to the every day life and actions. But it’s important to stop and take account of things and I only wish I had more time to do that. I would hope that when we move to Australia we’ll have that time, once we are all set up again.

I’m sorry for another dull and moanful entry. I will try and jazz it up soon, I promise.

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