Nearly 2 months down the line from my last blog and WOW, what a crazy fucked up world we have.

Me, Yvonne and Charlotte went to Athens for, what was, 5 bloody excellent nights away. We all really enjoyed it. It was great to see Charlotte looking so happy and relaxed and she just loved Athens.
I don't think me and Yvonne have drunk so much in Athens as we did on this trip, or spent as much either!!! That's Charlotte for you.

Then me and Yvonne went to Amsterdam for my Birthday on May 21st. We had a great night on my Birthday and then an awesome day, the day after. A really super evening, but then the whole thing was turned on it's head by the terrible events that occurred back home in Manchester at the Arena.
We just couldn't wait to get home the next day.

When I began this blog all those years ago, my football club had just become extremely rich. Manchester City went from being skint to being able to afford to the best players virtually overnight.
Since my last blog about City, we have won the FA Cup, lost in the final too. Won the League Cup and the icing of course was to win the Premier League, not once, but twice.
I went to two FA Cup semi finals and the losing final at Wembley, plus the League Cup Final win over Liverpool and was present at that wonderful title decider in 2012.
Following the blues had always been fun. We had some great away days back in the 70's and 80's. I've got some excellent memories, certain ones stick out. The trip to Grimsby back in 83 or 84, when I refused to drive one of the two van's the lad's had hired. I knew it would be carnage, so I went on my own on the football special, those were the days, football specials!!! Anyway, as I got off the train in Cleethorpes I spotted some of the lad's staggering about. When they saw me, they were begging me to drive back and then they told me how they had crashed both van's on the way down, into each other!!! Again I refused and had a nice train journey home.
We'd been to one away game, Wimbledon I think. We stopped at the services and I sat on the coach watching the goings on outside. One of City's then stars, Mick McCarthy, was sat with some friends eating in the service station, the lads spotted him and promptly did a conga around  his table. Mick wasn't amused and let the lad's know. They all trundled outside and mooned at Mick and his friend's through the window. A few months later we were away at Leeds and one of the lad's shouted out to Mick as he came over to take a throw in, "Hey Mick, remember the services after (whatever game it was)?" He chuckled as he grabbed the ball.

Just thought I would pop in again and make an update and maybe, just maybe I can make more an effort with this blog. Don't hold your breath though.

The fostering is now a distant, bad memory and we moved on. Yvonne at the airport, still full time and me still at Stepan. I'm 62 next month and Yvonne is 60 in February next year, so we are getting and feeling bloody old.
Can either of us retire early? NO!!! is the bloody answer to that. Mortgaged up to retirement.
The best we can hope for at the moment is Yvonne cutting her hours when she hits 60, but we'll have to see.
Unless I can make Betfair pay. Had a go at trading on the horse racing markets, but my indiscipline and at times stupid greed has held me back.
Trading? That's when you place money on a horse, or maybe more than one horse, to either win, backing it, or to lose, laying it and then when the odds change, you pocket the difference. Sounds easy doesn't it? It's not.
Anyway, more of that hopefully in the future.

For now, get tonights night shift out of the way, finish at 7 in the morning and then we are off to Athens for 5 nights.

Catch you later

Well, well, well, look who's back.
After the best part of four years absent, I thought I might resurrect my blog and recap some of the things I had 'blogged' about back then and bring those things up to date and also bring my life in general, up to date.

The last thing I wrote about was the fostering, which when I left off was going ok, with young Niall.
Well that went completely Pete Tong.
I am not going to use this blog to slag the kid off, or his parents for that matter, but hell fire, what a little so and so he turned out to be. Needless to say he went to live elsewhere and we were then looking for another child. We had a couple of kid's on rest bite, Darius, who was and still is in care with a couple of friends of ours and a young girl called Pippa, who was in care with a fabulous couple from Leigh.
Pippa came to stay for a weekend. Yvonne by this time was back at the Airport, so I had the pleasure of Pippa's company for a couple of my 4 day's off. She was a lovely kid, but daft as a brush and a full time, in your face kind of child.
 On the Sunday we went shopping, me and Pippa, to Morrisons and she told me, as I parked the car, that she wanted to use a wheelchair to go round the store in. I pointed out to her that she was in no way disabled, so using a wheelchair, was out of the question, but she was adamant and never stopped all the way round the bloody store. "Why can't I go in one" "No one is using them" and on and on she went.
We eventually got out of Morrisons, went home, put the shopping away and then she was on at me for the Wii, not to play on her own but for me to play too, which was ok for the first 5 hours, but I was starting to tire and she wasn't!
So when Pippa went back to her carers, I was happy and glad to get back to work for the rest!
The Fostering agency couldn't find us another full time placement, so as I said, Yvonne went back to work.
We told the agency that we would be keen to do the rest bite, but it all just faded away, so we ended up telling them to take us off their list of carers.

I have looked back on occasions with regret about it not working out, but life goes on.

1 week on

Well since my last blog, we have moved on a bit.
One week ago we welcomed Niall into our home. He is 11 years of age and is our first foster child.
He has been superb in this first week, well mannered, polite and generally a joy to have around. Football mad is an understatement, bit like myself at that age, difference being he's a Manchester United fan, whereas I was City through and through and I still am!
He is a typical 11 year, loves to play football, loves his X box and can chat til the cows come home.

More updates later.

Frustrated foster carers

Myself and Yvonne were approved as foster carers back in March. We had to do a few jobs about the house, something we were loathe to do until after we had been approved. We didn't see the point in spending money if we were not going to be approved.
Anyway, we were and had the jobs done. We told our social worker that we were wanting to have a holiday, that was the one to Skopelos, and that we would be available to have a child, because that's all we are allowed to have in our home, on account of it's size, from June the 2nd onwards.

So here we are on the 24th September and so far no child.
But, Yvonne had a call today, while she was in work, telling her that we could be getting a child this afternoon. I too was in work and I had the car, remember, we had one stolen by some scum bucket last December.
Yvonne got hold of me and told me about the little lad we might be able to have. I couldn't get out of work, because we were mad busy, due to 2 of our 5 person shift being in a quarterly brief. Yvonne said she wasn't sure if she could get out of work, but then I reminded her that I had the car.

So she rang back the agency and told them that we were not available for the little fella.
I was gutted, we have worked hard for this and seem to be getting nowhere.
Perhaps we will get a call on Monday saying he had been fixed up for the weekend and that we were to get him Monday or Tuesday for a longer period.

Whatever happens to us though, I hope he gets a nice family, who look after him and give him the love and care EVERY child deserves.

Brandon Flowers - Crossfire