Web Blog of Greg Mathews

Yea that’s right today I joined Facebook. I have always said I would never do it, in the same way I don’t twitter although a couple of my sites make use of twitter.

I am still getting my head around how facebook works but if you know me and are on facebook then please visit my profile and add me as a friend.

I will be back posting here again on a regular basis soon. I have been distracted recentlty and haven’t posted here and I appologise.

It was the Elections of the UK yesterday and it has resulted in a hung government. Gordon Brown and the Labour party came second but Gordon Brown is still our Prime Minister.

This proves that British politics is screwed up. Gordon Brown has NEVER won an election yet is our leader.

The Conservatives have won more seats than Labour and Liberal Democrats but as they haven’t won enough seats to take control so our constitution states that Gordon Brown can try to get other parties such as the Liberal Democrats to join him to get the majority. If he can’t then David Cameron can attempt to do the same.

It’s a bloody mess, come on Gordon, you got less votes and won less seats so accept the public don’t want you and piss off.

OK Europe is stuck at the moment with no fly zones covering most of it. People are being forced to pay hundreds if not thousands of pounds EACH to get home to/from european destinations as the  main alternatives are all full.

So I thought heck why not help out. I am willing to drive to europe and bring  back your loved ones who can’t get home. I am based in the UK so this is best suited for people attempting to get to the UK from Europe. Obviously fuel would need to be covered so I would charge based on the mileage I have to travel from the midlands.  This service would be carried out in our motor home which could take 5 in addition to me the driver, refreshments (tea/coffee or squash) would be available on route as well as toilet facilities.

If needed a stop over on route is possible but in this case a max of 4 people could be collected and they should be willing to share a bed with each other, although in single sleeping bags.

A couple of days ago in my post It’s a mystery I mentioned we were in process of fitting some kitchen units etc. As some of our worktop is not over any units we decided to fix some wood to the wall under the worktop to help support it. This was great idea, drilled first hole in wall, drilled second hole in the wall, had already screwed screws into wood so just needed to put up to holes in wall and screw up.

NO, one of the screws wasn’t lining up with the hole in the wall so rather than move the screw I decided to drill another hole in the wall, this was a big mistake as there just happened to be a pair of water pipes just where I drilled and I ended up having a shower fully clothed.

We turned off  and called plumber, he arrived later at the same time the Father inlaw was here cutting hole in worktop for sink and taps. Anyway, after about an hour, the plumber had fixed the pipework, the water was back on and I had decided not to put a peice of wood in that spot.

I then thought I might aswell fit the tap, simple with flexi pipes it wouldn’t take too long. Well we had water spraying everywhere each time we turned the water on to the tap, and I wasn’t going to give up until I figured out the problem. Midnight came and I thought it was indeed time to give up until the morning. During the night I wondered if there maybe was an ‘Olive’ or ‘washer’ missing so mentioned it to Tracey. ‘Oh there are some washers that came with it in that little bag’ was her reply and in that bag was the washer that fitted perfectly, and stopped all the water.

We completed the tap yesterday morning and put the sink and waste trap in yesterday afternoon, it did take a while but now it is complete on one side of the galley kitchen. Well apart from the tiling which we will probably do next week. The other side of kitchen will wait until we have purchased all the units from Ikea as well as a new hob.

I am sorry it’s been so long, I hadn’t realised (yet again) that it’s been nearly a month since I last posted.

It is strange that after a month since I shut down Dropaholics and replaced the widget there are still blogs trying to display it. Fortunately for me it has been replaced by a search box pointing to my Meta Search engine BookMarkCenter.com so is doing me no harm

What have I been doing since my last post? not much work to be honest.  Tracey decided a while back she wanted a new kitchen and called a builder out to knock down one of the walls to make the kitchen and dining rooms more joined/open plan. This meant we lost storage space etc and some kitchen units had to come out. That was a couple of months ago, and me being a man said ‘ah thats ok no rush’, ‘we can make do with what’s left’ etc. Well we have been to Ikea more times than I’ve had hot dinners in the past month and picked up little bits each time, ie base unit this week, worktop next week etc.

Our kitchen is a galley kitchen, so we decided to do one side at a time, well we had everything we  needed for the one side, I had to remove and lay some floor tiles which is a bloody messy job (they way i work at least), and over the weekend we fitted the units and worktop, the one problem we have is that Tracey won’t let me cut out for the new kitchen sink, so we are waiting for her father to do it (this evening) and at the moment we have no kitchen sink which is a right pain in the back side.

A few weeks ago I posted What’s wrong with me? well it appears the doctor hasn’t a clue what the problem is. Well that is what he is telling me. I first had blood tests and they came back all clear so he sent me for a chest xray, can you believe in this day and age it takes over a week to get an xray from a community hospital to the doctors surgery, anyway that came back clear.

My last visit the doc asked if I was still experiencing the same symptoms, as if they would stop after months because I have had tests, and when I said yes he said he would refer me to the hospital.  It used to be the case that the hospital would make the appointment and then tell you the time and place, not any more, I received a letter from the doctors surgery telling me I have been referred and I need to make an appointment. I did this online, and actually it turns out to be a good thing, I was able to choose when and where I had the appointment. I could have made an appointment in about 3 weeks time, but that falls during the kids school holidays and at a location I don’t know, the next available time was 2 weeks later at the local hospital so I took that as the kids would be at school.

It amazes me that from the the time I first saw the doctor to the time I am seen at the hospital will be nearly 3 month, heck it’s a good job I’m not dieing. I can’t complain I suppose, it is FREE health care which we PAY for in our taxes etc. I could PAY more and go private but I am not in a financial position to do that these days.

Anyway, I won’t know any thing for a  while yet so it’s back to work.

OK last week I announced that Dropaholics is shutting down until I get time to fix some bugs, I then sent messages via entrecard all those I knew had the dropahholic widget on there blog, about 80 I think there was.

Well over a week later 60+ of those blogs are still showing the widget. Even some that have responded saying they will remove the widget haven’t.

Sorry I am not sending them all another message but am just going to say here that tomorow the dropaholic widget will no longer be available. I am not a total prat and I will replace it with a simple totally different widget so that blogs do not get ‘page not found” errors where the widget should be.

The reason I am taking this action is because some blogs in the Dropaholics database have been linked to the wrong blog image and this is upsetting some blog owners.

Dropaholics will be back but not sure when.

Yes, this IS a plug, not for any affiliate program but one of my own sites.

Mystery Valentine Card

I bet many of you remember me  launching this site early last year. If you don’t then this site allows you to send your loved one a Valentines card in total anonymity. These are REAL cards, not E-cards that have no personality, they are mailed out, not sent via an email, to real people.

Mystery Valentine Card can mail out a Valentine card to that someone special anywhere in Europe and North America.

Hurry though, there are onlly a couple of days left, don’t forget your loved ones.

After the amazing response I received after yesterdays announcement I started thinking about what and if I can do anything.

As I mentioned in the post yesterday, I don’t have the time at the moment to develop as I need to work on projects that pay the bills. I will however promise that as soon as I get a  few days to work in Dropaholics I will and the site will return.

I am sorry to say that Dropaholics is shutting down.

There have been a number of bugs over the past 15 months with it and while looking into something recently I have discovered that the scripts that are meant to update blog info if it changes, ie blog button or title etc hasn’t been working correctly for a while.

Without fully investigating I don’t know exactly what has caused this to stop working, and at the moment I don’t have the time to put into checking and rewriting it.

If you are one of the 1300 blogs that have registered with the site then I want to thank you for taking part in it and if you have a widget on your blog could you please  remove it.

Thanks

Greg

As many of you know I gave up smoking early last year, when we went to Spain in August I found I was sweating all the time. Now I have always been one who sweats when its hot or I am in an uncomfortable situation but this time I was sweating more than I have before when in Spain and it was not as hot as the previous year.

Anyway I put it down to a ‘different kind of heat’, yea I know heat is heat but any excuse will do, I am invincible so it can’t be anything else, heck I have given up smoking so must be healthier than before.

Anyway move on, about 2 months ago, I started getting out of breath and sweating after minor things, the breathlessness normally came at the end of the day when I am sat in front  of the TV. I put it down to the fact I have put on a few pounds on since giving up smoking.

A week last Friday we went shopping at the supermarket (Tesco), we had not been there  two minutes and I had to take my coat off, sweat was pouring off me. This was not good, I even mentioned to a friend who was with us that I think it’s time I went to the doctors.  By the time we got home I sat here at the keyboard and forgot all about it.

Monday morning I did some research online and both sweating and breathlessness can apparently indicate blocked arteries. This I thought needs a doctor so I phoned to make an appointment. I love the free NHS here, I think we get a great service generally but it does mean we have to wait for appointments. The soonest I could be seen was in 7 days, I could have phoned next morning at 8:30 and get in the same day but I didn’t feel the need.

Yesterday I had the appointment, explained the situation and the doctor listened to my chest, I had not told him what research I had done so his actions confirmed that the artery/heart could be having problems although he never said anything like that. He asked me to make an appointment to see the nurse to get some blood tests done and said if they don’t show anything then  he will send me for chest xrays. I did this and had the bloods taken this morning, the results should be in on Thursday, and I have made another appointment to see the Doctor next Tuesday to discuss the results.

So now I have another week to wait, is it just me or is there a problem?