What I had learned today 15/04/2011

Coming back home from work after a long day I found out that one of my children was running a very high temperature, limp and not himself. Adding to that my girlfriend was almost frantic with worry. Instead of rushing him to A&E, as most parents in their right minds would do, and waiting for hours until he had been seen I decided to call his usual Doctor's surgery; on the off chance that someone would answer.

As it was out if hours it was just a gamble, but it had paid off!!

The phone call was transferred to an out of hours call centre and answered by a very calm and knowledgeable lady who took a list of the symptoms that my son had indicated and instructed what we was to look out for. As she was a bit worried about his condition she didn't want to leave it to chance, so she arranged for our son to be seen by a doctor at 8.40pm on the same night, just 1 hour from our call on a Friday.

We were advised to go to the drop-in centre in Selly Oak, Birmingham - as they run an after hours consultancy which was by appointment only.

We got seen by the doctor, more or less straight away, and my son was given a check over and a clean bill of health, diagnosis the cold/flu. From then on my son is getting better (through various amount of Calpol and Ibuprofen) and his temperature is a lot lower then it was earlier and he is slowly getting back to his usual destructive self.

The reason for writing about this is that I wanted to share the fact that if you do find yourself in the same predicament as my girlfriend and myself was with our son, it might pay to try your Doctor's surgery first, chances are that you will get first class advice and access to a Doctor way quicker then you had originally thought.

Please bear in mind that this is only me sharing advice on what I had experienced and depending on the severity of the symptoms that any child is showing A&E may be the first and only option.

What I have learned today 14th April

As usual, I am always on the hunt for a bargain on the web.  Looking around I found two fantastic websites for anyone who likes a bit of retail therapy on the cheap.

http://www.hotukdeals.com and http://www.offeroftheday.do.uk

They are updated very frequently and have some great bargains,  found and posted by the general public. I will warn you though, you will probably end up spending more then you realise!

What have I learned today 12/03/2011

What have I learned today 11/03/2011

I have learned that what ever life does throw at you be positive and battle through it as what your problems are, they pale into insignificance when compared to someone else.

The utter natural tradegy in Japan that played out today brought that thought to the forefront. 
Watching how the power of nature completely obliterated peoples homes, businesses and more importantly loved ones just shows how we are merely sitting tennants on the planet that we call as our own.

My thoughts and prayers go out to every person directly and indirectly affected by this tradegy and I really do hope that swift global aid will go and help these unfortunate people.

What have I learned today 09/03/11

Wild Honey Bees are worringly in decline all over the world. As one of natures biggest pollenators of flowers and crops, bee colonies are collapsing and disappearing - UN scientists have reported today. 

What is scary about this find is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over 70 are pollenated by honey bees.

So my motto is to be friendly to the honey bee ths summer, I know I will bee...(sorry couldn't resist it).

The Seat Arosa - Gone but not forgotten

It was a sad day two weeks ago, a very grey, rain filled Friday to be exact. I should of been excited as it was the last day at work before I was on holiday for the week, but in the back of my mind I knew there was something wrong - MY SEAT AROSA HAS TO GO!!!

I have had it for sale for about a year. I have advertised it in the Auto Trader, I created a website for it www.seat4sale.co.uk and even bought more domain names that can point to the website to make it more searchable, and dropped it's sale value quite a few times to generate interest - to no avail unfortunately - I had finally sold it to www.webuyanycar.com. A very quick and may I say pleasant to deal with company but I did feel that they had got a bargain.

It is a shame really as it was a great car, it only had a 1.0 litre engine but what it didn't have in the engine department it made up more in the soul department. It was a great car to drive, practical and nippy. Bulletproof reliability and a simplicity that made the car a joy to operate. With its alloy wheels and black metallic paint it really looked a sporty number. Based on the VW Lupo it had shared many of its parts from it's German sister but I believed that it had the better looks out of the two, as the Lupo has more of a Frog eye look in my opinion.

It didn't have a cavernous boot but it did manage to fit in the weeks shopping and being such a small car it was easy to park. The interior space was roomy for such a small car, you could easily get 4 people in the car quite comfortably and still have the boot as small change. The dash had a quality feel about it, no cheap feeling plastics were used here, it had a practicality about the materials used and the seats were a joy to sit in. I particularly like the red lights that illuminated the dashboard at night, very swish.

The best part of the car for me was the actual driving experience! It screamed go kart. Very grippy around corners it felt that this car was to put a very safe smile on your face and the engine even though it was a 1.0 litre MPi it had an urgency about it say that I really can feel like a sporty car. The feedback from the steering wheel was fantastic, you could feel every bump and every driving condition. It even held it's own when we had that week of snow, though it did scare me by skidding very close to one car, but as it didn't have ABS I think that was more driver error then the ability of the car. Finally on the motorway it sat nicely between the 65mph-75mph range, though fuel consumption wasn't the best - returning about 40-45 MPG, it felt like you could do that speed all day and not have any hiccups.

For a car of this type you do get close to it's personality and for me when it was finally sold, it was a loss. I am sure that I will make up for it's loss in the future but for now even though it has gone it definitely will not be forgotten.

My first Blog

As a blog virgin I have been thinking what do I write about? Will it be funny? Will it be informative? Will it be interesting? Will it be read!!

I thought I would just put a few random thoughts down as the CD in my Mac whirrs away putting another CD album onto iTunes to go onto an iPod that is already filled to the rafters with music, music that I haven't really heard for a while to say the least, or will ever listen to - the iPod abyss.

I am sitting here tapping away thinking about what I have learned so far this year...

Learned how to create some simple websites, using Apple iWeb at the moment but will be moving onto Dreamweaver soon, for my Dad www.littlejimmy.co.uk and for my girlfriend's car which she has up for sale at www.seatforsale.co.uk

Learned a little about the black art of Search Engine Optimization, and from what I have read it does work, my dad's website is currently 3rd at the moment in google.co.uk, gotta be worth something, to my dad at least. Thank you SEO for Dummies for making me less of a Dummy.

Learned how to use Twitter and tweet.

Learned how to buy domains and park them with the prospect of making a small amount of money from adverts and links put on them www.irishentertainer for example.

Learned how to put up shelves, without which I would not be typing this blog.

Learning how to blog, which strangely I am finding therapeutic - who needs a shrink!!

and finally...

Learned that when my partner is away up north (Newcastle to be exact) I can get a lot more done then usual (love ya really Vikki ;) like writing this blog.

Look out for more updates soon.

Ant out...