Private Thoughts Made Public

Time to play catch-up with the events of the weekend. It’s been fairly quiet all told, and I’ve managed to relax and recouperate from work for a few days. Phew. Only downside to next week is that there’s a bank holiday which means we get paid on Friday instead of Thursday. I’ll come back to that later.
Saw my son lots and lots over the weekend. Ex-wife and I took him shopping for a new bike on Saturday. He’s has his old bike for nearly three years now, and since he’s only five and a half, it’s about time he grew out of it! Apparently my ex’s dad had promised him a new bike for his birthday, and since the only thing that’s happened since his birthday has been winter, now’s the time to get him measured for a bike. So we managed to have a civilised day out, shopping. I know lots of married couples can’t have a civilised day out shopping with each other, let alone divorced couples, but since I wasn’t being asked to pay for absolutely everything it all went fine as far as I’m concerned.
Ex-wife’s new boyfriend (and since that’s going to be a handful to type in all the time, I’ll call him XWNB) is a bit of a Doctor Who fan, inasmuch as he’s got videos of some of the old stories. My son has been watching these, not from behind the sofa, but from the edge of his seat. In the car on the way to get his bike he told me all about Davros and the Daleks, so we promised him he could watch the new series if he was well-behaved. Which he was, by and large. We only had one small tantrum and that was when we crossed the road to avoid going into the Disney Store. He spotted it and wanted to go in, and got in a bit of a strop when we wouldn’t let him.
There has probably been many column inches (or should that be kilobytes) written about the new series of Doctor Who, and all I’m going to add is this: I was a keen Doctor Who fan when I was a child, watching the Jon Pertwee shows avidly and then losing interest halfway through the Tom Baker years. Either the show was getting cheaper and tackier, or I’d gotten old enough to realise it was cheap and tacky. Whatever. So I wasn’t really bothered one way or the other that it was coming back, but I kinda got caught up in all the hype and watched it anyway. I thought it was enjoyable enough hokum and I’ll probably watch it next week as well. I hope they turn it into a serial rather than lots of one-off episodes, but the first one of a new series always has to be a scene-setter, so I’ll give it a chance.
Back to my son, who was very energetic today. I asked him where he got his energy from, and he replied “Monsters Inc”, which is as good an answer as any. He loves to wrestle with me, jumping all over me and using my body as a punchbag, but today he was a bit more enthusiastic. He kept trying to kick and chop me. So, naturally, I asked him where he learned all this kicking stuff. “Dora the Explorer” was his first answer. “What else have you been watching?” I asked, not quite believing that Dora was a karate expert. So he came clean. “Jackie Chan!” he enthused. A-ha, now we’re getting somewhere. Now I know what to expect next time.
As promised, I mentioned earlier that I get paid weekly. I don’t know how many other companies pay weekly, in every other job I’ve had I’ve been paid monthly, so it too a bit of getting used to. I’ve been in my current job over six years now, so I should have gotten used to it by now. The only drawbacks are: we get paid a day late on weeks which contain a bank holiday Monday, and the direct debits go out on particular dates whereas Thursdays fall on different dates each month. So one month the mortgage might go out the day after I get paid, another month it might go out the day before. But on the whole I like getting paid weekly, I only have to budget for seven days, and I’m never skint for that long. Rather than be skint for the last eight days of the month like everyone else, I’m skint for the last two days of every week, heheh.