Month: July 2015

I’ve decided that the only way to find my lost 62GB memory stick is to buy another one. I visited Amazon and found the old purchase at £35 but now it is £14.99 except, underneath it said it had been replaced by a USB3 version for £13.99, a result I think!

Whilst I was there I also bought a tea strainer as that too has gone missing! I quite like leaf tea but can’t stand all the large leaves at the bottom. I particularly love Jasmin tea, it’s just sort of yummy and fresh and in my special china tea service too from China … OK, it was made in China but was actually bought in Spain at a theme park in their land which they call ‘China’ so, one way or another it’s authentic!

Cortana was missing as a working version from Windows 10 but strangely, now it works! I changed it all to USA location and it worked straight away, it wouldn’t with UK settings. I decided I really didn’t want my PC thinking it was American though so reverted back to UK and, as if by magic, Cortana works so, she doesn’t quite qualify because she’s no longer missing.

Dennis, I am missing Dennis … had to include him somehow in a blog!

I pulled on to a roundabout earlier narrowly missing another car .. entirely my fault, misjudged his speed and he had right of way.

Acquired a move the other day, ‘One of our Dinosaurs is Missing’ … can’t remember whether it was any good or not so might need to watch it.

I am in love with Dennis pure and simple. Yes, I understand that some might find it difficult to understand how I can be in love with someone the other side of the world who I have never met.

Clearly it is possible because it’s real and, Dennis feels it too which, let’s face it, is a good thing!

We speak just about every day between 12-3pm or as much time as we can on Skype otherwise on Viber. Time always flies by so quickly even on those days when we barely say anything.

God willing Dennis will be over here next April time for a month to get to know me in the flesh and also to get to know the family a lot more and those friends who would like to meet him. We are, of course, relying on the UK Border Agency approving his tourist visa but that should all go through OK. I shall probably go there to visit over Christmas 2016. Dennis only really gets two longer breaks from work in April and December so when we can travel is restricted.

He is a teacher living, hmm, about an hour or so south of Manila? I think that’s about right.

Long distance relationships are tough, our time online is quite precious to us so, unless it is really important we’d appreciate it if calls and requests were kept to a minimum during ‘our’ time.

All things working out wonderfully, and we like to be positive, he may come here permanently in perhaps summer 2017. It might then be quite possible that by 2030 we will move back to the Philippines for retirement but, that’s a long way off yet!

Hopefully, in time, Dennis will remember to write on Facebook and add some friends and family so you all can get to know him too.

Whether we like it or not, Windows 10 is upon us.

I was a little nervous about it to be honest with you. I was thinking we’d be dished up Windows 8.1 with some backward looking features to Windows 7. I am pleasantly surprised to be telling you that what we actually have is Windows 7 with the best bits of Windows 8.1.

So far, so good.

I think it’s rather possible that Microsoft have released it a little prior to everything actually working so, expect a service pack some time soon but, on the whole, it seems quite a neat package

Yes, my blog is often about current affairs or, more likely than no … me.

Not this one, this is about fairness and morality and parenting.

When someone has a child they believe they get automatic parental rights. There is no such thing, what they have is parental responsibility, they are two totally different thing. It means that until they are old enough to look after themselves (legally), as a parent there is a responsibility to support that child emotionally, physically and financially. Failure to do any of those consistently or at all is unacceptable by any definition unless there is the sort of situation which makes it impossible.

As a parent there is no right to opt out of their lives unless you are so far up your own backside you wish to put yourself first all too often if not all the time. This applies to mothers or fathers, I am not singling anyone out here for special criticism, I’ve know both genders who felt it was totally fine to leave the kids with another parent and live their own lives popping up again when they felt like it.

How old does a child need to be before any decent absent parent leaves them alone? The damage done to a child when a parent comes back and forth in their lives is huge. Children are not there to tick the box on parenting once every year or two, they are a 365 day a year responsibility. Some parents not only feel it’s OK to go off and forget about them but they go and create more children!

When should a parent (male or female) with residency (custody) stop access when ‘reasonable’ access was the award of a court?

Is just not turning up or making any attempt to contact the child for a year or so good enough to allow a court to accept the plea of no access from the primary carer? How about if the other parent is taking or distributing a banned substance (drugs) or heavily socialises with those involved in recreational drugs? At what point is it totally reasonable to deny access and, what should the absent parent do to win it back.

I’ve known absent parents, total born liars. Somehow they get believed but they lie to get what they want. They’d blame anything and anyone rather than take responsibility as to why they’ve not been there committed to their parental responsibility.

I have known other parents who have done nothing wrong and yet are denied access and yet still send money to that child and buy birthday and Christmas gifts they will never get. It makes me totally sick that there are fathers and mothers out there who think it’s OK to treat their children as secondary to anything and everything else in their lives.

Sadly, so many reasons for morally denying access to an absent parent are really difficult to prove ad there seems to be nothing in place to really arbitrate to the truth.

The best I can think of is extended periods of supervised access with drug and alcohol testing. If this is complete, then, and only then should an absent parent be allowed unsupervised access to the child but, it should be on a three strikes and your out basis. They are allowed three opportunities to see their child but if they make any excuse at all to cancel, on the third time, even if there have been OK times in between, access should be revoked.

What annoys me, frustrates me so much is that so many of those parents feel it is about them. It should only ever be about the welfare of the child. There is no place in parenting to lie to get to spend time with a child. Parents should lead a life which enables their quality consistent parenting.