I know what you did last Winter

I know it's late, but I have been doing my own review of last year. A year with more hi and low lights than George Michael's hair in the Wham days. Anyone that reads these blogs or follows my Twitter feed can oft lay the 'Too Much Information' tag at my door, but I didn't tell you everything, well not yet anyway.

One of the biggest things I forgot to mention was that we moved house, a most traumatic experience at the best of times, and by God I wish we had picked the best of times. Instead, we picked the week before Christmas to move, the day after it started snowing, the day the kids broke up from school. Nothing like a challenge to get the blood pressure going. The move itself deserves a full blog devoted to it, but every time I try, my left eye starts twitching and won't stop until I mainline some Jack Daniels. Maybe one day, when the wound is not so raw, I will write it, give it another 14 years I reckon.

Don't get me wrong I love the new house, it has 3 toilets, the importance of this will become clear in a minute, a brand new kitchen, and a conservetory consevotery lean to (too many vowels, not enough time). All the kids have their own bedroom now, so I am looking forward to some sleep for the first time in five years. Unfortunately I got a fairly bad case of what I thought was food poisoning on the second day. Never has the extravagance of lots of toilets been such a practical blessing. Whilst everyone else has been discovering all the different nooks and crannies of the house, I have been discovering which toilet seat fits my arse the best. I also discovered that the previous owners must have been made out of a bendy rubber type substance, as you have to have arms growing out of your back to reach any of the toilet roll holders.

A few weeks later I was talking to my Brother-in-law about how ill I still was. He sympathised as apparently he had gone through the same thing three weeks before, then his work colleague had it, then his best mate Scooby (don't ask). His next statement was said with a straight face and no sense of irony, "There just doesn't seem to be any kind of common denominator." No mate, none at all, well none other than YOU, the man now to be referred to as 'The Sickness Reaper'.

As bad as the sickness was, I didn't let it curtail my drinking habits, especially on New Year's Eve. God, now that I'm a year older the hangovers seem to be a year worse. Although I've not yet found one I haven't been able to drink my way out of. New Years Day found me setting up camp in the toilet with a sink next to it, armed with only a book and a bottle of wine. Start the year as you mean to go on I say. I even invented a new word as I was sitting there contemplating the meaning of life (the answer to which is, buy more towels).

TANKERED (adj.) the state of being between getting tanked, and getting wankered. For use in polite circles.

Now I just have to find out the procedure for getting it into the Oxford dictionary, and how much they are going to pay me for it. Fame and fortune will be mine I tell you.

One of the other downsides to the move was losing my broadband for what was meant to be seven days, but ended up being 37 (see my letter to Rupert Murdoch on that score). I should have taken this opportunity to get some writing done without the distraction of Twitter and YouTube, but I didn't. I couldn't even bear to turn the PC on. It was the geek version of having a really hot girlfriend at the wrong time of month, pointless. I still had my iPhone, so I wasn't completely cut off from the world. I even developed modern day insanity, in which I would send myself emails instead of talking to myself.

I did end up doing a lot more Housebitch stuff, although that was more prompted by a comment made by my eldest, Dawn, than any sense of new house pride. On returning from school one day, she enquired as to whether the broadband was up and running yet. When I answered in the reproducing negative, she asked (with some concern I hasten to add) what I had been doing all day without the PC. I somewhat stupidly/hastily replied, "Loads, do you think this house cleans itself?" To her credit she did not burst into laughter, but the way her eyes darted left and right, surveying the pig-sty of a front room, betrayed her real thoughts.

I now have a garage as well as a shed, so I now have two places to hide my secret stash of beer. I have even given the beers their own code name, DW40. So when I am using WD40 to oil the squeakiest doors in the world, I can use DW40 to get well oiled myself. I have also found a light switch in one of the cupboards under the stairs (one is going to become Mate's punishment dungeon) that does not appear to lead to anything. I have visions of the neighbours TV turning on and off every time I flick it, which is a lot now I've had that thought.

Of course my normal way of dealing with the kids was thrown upside-down with the Wife having two weeks off. Our parenting routine is less Good Cop/Bad Cop and more Amnesty International Worker/African Despot. Every time I say "No" to Mate, he cries so hard it always produces the 'what have you done to him' look. I normally only have to put up with it at the weekends, but two weeks was murder. By the time January came around, the cocky little bugger was running the place, all with an indulgent smile from his Mum.

The year did end on a sad note, with the death of a very close and important friend. Our Sky+ box with its 90% full memory of all my favourite films, and half watched TV series', departed this world for tech heaven. The tears were flowing as I begged the Sky engineer to do something, anything. Eventually the life support was turned off, and the plug pulled out of the socket. I felt like I had been stabbed in the guts. Farewell old friend, I will miss you.