Ok looking back at my blog posts here (newtus.co.uk if you are reading this via feed or Facebook) there’s a noticeable thinning out since 2008.  I’ve recently realised that life has been repeatly bashing me over the head for the last five years or so. I think its called ‘growing up’ 🙂

The big news of course is that we are now back in Castle Newport on the top of the hill overlooking sunny Royton town, part of the Oldham metropolitan district.  The builders , after being confronted about when they would finish before Christmas (“you said four months when I asked you at our first meeting and then before Christmas back in October, its before Christmas now”. ) got their act together and finished their building work in Feb, and we got the house fit to move in (decorators and carpeting) by early April. There’s still outstanding work that is only just getting finished (garden lights and a fireplace) and the whole thing is a tale in itself ( a cautionary one). Lets just say we hired the Building company to do the extension building and project manage all the subcontractors, and while they get a B+ for the building ( a complex and big job which doubled the size of our house ) they get a definite F for the project management size of things. Both Rachel and my next door neighbour Marie say they need a woman to tell them what to do, which is a damning statement indeed 😛

The build put me under allot of pressure, as well as the ongoing pressure of looking after Evie & Henry, but I was taken to breaking point and beyond when my dad was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer (well if you will be a daft bugger and chain smoke for 30+ years) in February and died on 2nd April this year. His funeral was in late April, Easter got in the way, and then sorting out his estate (or rather letting go of the responsibility – since his estate was insolvent) took us surviving Newport’s up to June (I think, details are a bit hazy). Again I may write more fully about this, but summing up it was a brief (in the scheme of how these things can be) and brutal five months. I’m over the harsh debilitating effects of his death,  nothing could have prepared me for the extreme physical weakness and tiredness, the angry outbursts and general scatterbrain that I was in the immediate aftermath. Didn’t help that this carcrash happened as we were moving back in and settling in.  I’m completely fine about it now, which is weird in itself. It’s like it has happened in  a parallel universe most of the time, and all I need to do is ring Dad up and have a chat about the Olympics or the last of the builders nonsense cos I’ve  been a bad son and not rung him in ages. Then I realise I can’t (well I could but mum’s got his mobile and that would freak her out 😉 ) .  It will hit me at Christmas.

Its not all been doom and gloom. Conpulsion a gaming convention in Edinburgh over Easter was a great break from the doom and gloom back in April and things distinctly picked up in the summer that really is only  just coming to an  end here.  Highlights, which I will give time to and do proper blog posts about, have been a family trip to Euro Disney ( I MET TIGGER!!), Continuum gaming convention, our two week holiday in West Norfolk (no sniggering at the back there, moi family comes from there ) and a camping weekend  just gone. Settling into the house has been a big priority, and somewhat disrupted by all the holidaying 🙂  The new house itself is awesome, although sometimes a bit confusing ( where the frack do we put all our tupperware – but we have tons of kitchen cupboards ),  and we now have the family home (and then some) that me and Rachel (ok Rachel mainly) have been planning for the last ten years or so.

Now its time to see where the adventure takes us next 🙂