Shine On You Crazy Diamond!

Just heard on the ether, that Syd Barrett passed away a few days ago. That's really sad news for all Pink Floyd fans. He was the driving force for the band in the early days, but left after only 3 years. It is thought strongly that maybe drugs, specifically LSD was his undoing. After leaving the band, Syd released a few solo albums, with some real gems on them, but they were mostly rambling works of a fractured genius.

Syd died peacefully at aged 60. We'll miss you Syd.

Life is Good

It's so easy to forget what's really important in life. Sometimes life just seems to pass you by, but every now and then you get a weekend that's so fulfilling that you, sit smuggly with that smile on your face, that just radiates all that is good. It's not just the things that give you instant gratification that make you feel good. For instance I hate mowing the lawn with a passion, but I flew over it on Sunday, just before the World Cup final. Actually that's not quite true as I went out at half time, to finish the small patch to the left of our house.

Anyway the World Cup final was a real peach of a game. Italy were all over France in the first half, but were the victims of an unfortunate penalty decision, which led to the first goal. However Italy rebounded and managed to draw things level pretty soon after. The second half saw France begin to take control, but they just couldn't score. France were lucky that Zinadine Zidane's reckless headbutt was towards the end of the game, as they were still able to take things to penalties. However some great goalkeeping and a small modicum of luck, saw Italy raise the trophy for the fourth time in their history.

Anyway apart from all that, I had some really good time with my babies and also managed to get the pool all ship shape and even got to have a swim or two. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I'm beginning to get quite a tan.

Monday saw me play house husband for the day, which I have to admit, was rather nice. Sarah and Lucy are the most amazing babies and are coming on leaps and bounds every day. Sarah now says "Bless You" whenever I sneeze, which is just so cute. We went out after lunch to Timmy's and shared an ice cap and the babies also had a few Tim Bits. It was a bit muggy, but a nice walk none the less.

Life at home has taken yest another change. I am the one who wakes the babies up in the morning and gives them breakfast. To see the every morning is jujst so nice. They are just so excited to see me every morning.

Mandi has been gone for just over a week now. Sherri is coping quite well, cos at least she's seeing Mandi every week day until August when she gets ready for school and Sherri and I take over for the month of August. Then yet another leaf of the Meeks household begins.

I Am Man and I Make Um Fire...

...OK so maybe I don't make fire, but I made a nice gate for the steps leading up to the swimming pool. Yes Colin Meeks is officially a handy man. Now I don't pretend to know half the time what I'm doing, especially when it comes to DIY, but if I want to do something, God damn it I do it... eventually.

I'd actually bought all the things to make the gate a few weeks ago, but they'd sat neatly piled in the garage. I don't know what it is, but the last two weeks have for some reason been overwhelming. I can pinpoint that to a certain degree. Mandi left home officialy on Saturday. She's moved downtown with her boyfriend, so one of our little girls has flown the coup. So that's been a roller coaster ride for Sherri, up to and including the time she left.

In addition to that, the England teams attempt at lifting the World Cup for the first time in 40 years came to a crashing halt on Saturday morning. We had Wayne Rooney sent off in a questionable red card incident and another similar incident involving one of their players, later in the game totally ignored. There was also a blatant penalty waived off, so as you can see the luck as always cerainly wasn't ours. When the game went to penalty a shoot off, that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach was doing it's bit and sure enough, we just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net. A little while later it struck me. Yes we didn;t have any luck and maybe the reffereeing wasn't too hot, but ultmately we only have our selves to blame. Football is a game about putting the ball in the opponents net and we just couldn't do that. Oh well another 4 years and we can start all over again.

Also I've been fortunate to have back to back F1 races, that I've been able to watch in the early afernoon, instead of the usual 7am that I normally watch the races which has been great. I've also been preoccupied with the swimming pool. I've been a bit lax in the upkep department and consequetly allowed the pool to get a build up of algae. All is under control again. I've been shocking the pool with chlorine for the past two nights and the pool is again crystal clear, I just need to make sure I vacuum the pool tonight, to get rid of the dirt that's built up on the bottom.

So that's been my last few weeks. Intermingle into that Lucy and Sarah and as you can see we don't have as much time on our hands as we used to, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Atually Lucy has been back to CHEO (the childrens hospital) a few times for appointments regardng her ears. She is currently wearing a Baha hearing aid, which is in essence a microphone that vibrates on the bone, allowing Lucy;s hearing to get the boost it needs. Lucy has a mild loss in one ear and a mild to moderate loss in the other. This is a vital time for Lucy's speech development, so anything they can do to assist this is being done. Lucy has a CAT scan arranged for a few months time, when they will try to determine why she has a hearing loss and hopefully it is something they can rectify. Fortuately they know her inner ear is not affected and it's some kind of obstruction before it gets to the inner ear, so hopefully it's a simple surgery they can do to fix that... that's our hope anyway.

Anyway I have to scoot. The new regime started today. I'm at home with the babies until about 8:30am until Mandi can get here to take over. That is for the next month anyway. Then between Sherri and I, we have the month of August off, that's going to be a ncie time together. I almost forgot to mention Alanna. She's keeping herself busy now that school has finished for the summer. She is working at the Loeb grocery store and has already worked her way from sales clerk to cash, which means she no longer has to be worried about carts. The money is also better, so she's very happy. She works all but one day this week I think, so she will be excited to see her next pay packet.

Anyway I have to scoot. The babies are just beginning to wake up and I get a chance to be silly before I have to go to work. Oh year, here's the pictures of the new gate I built. Alanna gave me the greates compliment when she said to Sherri, "Dad didn;t build that, he went to the store and bought it, didn't he?" LOL