Monthly Archives: December 2008

I’m just in another world every day this week counting down the time until Alison steps foot off that plane in Norfolk and we begin our new life together. Someone would be very hard pressed to remove the smile from my face tonight. I cant imagine what tomorrow and Tuesday will bring me in the way of excitement. Its beyond anything I have known before. Just amazing.

i should be up and doing a lot of things around the house to get things ready, but I really can;t focus or concentrate on anything else for sitting here dreaming of our day coming up, our life coming up.  We were talking yesterday of how we have spent so many days and nights carrying such an ache and yearning to just have the other touchable. It has been so very hard being apart. But never during any part of this separation has our devotion and determination faltered in the least little bit, just the opposite in fact, whenever there are those times we got down or sad at the distance between us it wasn’t long before it was turned around by realising that the love we have endures anything and its because our love is so strong and sure that that is the reason for the pain, a longing and yearning deep within to make our dreams come true,  We used to say to each other that when the time did come all this pain would vanish and the memories with it, You know its true.. here we are now jsut hours from being together and all those aches and pains and sadness have just gone right out the window and its like it was a blur as it all has been replaces with an excitement and knowing now we are nearly there. only happiness is left :)  Oh don’t get me wrong, I know not everything surrounding our life will be honky dory as alison calls it, but beyond any doeubt our love alwasy will endure and togetehr we will get through anything. I guess we have an advantage over a lot of couples as we both truly know the value of a loyal and devoted marriage, open and honest about everything. We have had that from the start, we always will because we have both seen some dark days in our lives and we know beyond doubt that Love truly is the greatest gift in the world and we were given that gift, to honor and cherish it as we do each other. I consider myself the richest man in the world being loved by One such as her.  I love you Alison mou.

Ok off to go do something constructive, times ticking! ;)

This must be the longest week in history! I feel the time is just dragging by now waiting for Tuesday to get here. To say I’m excited is an understatement. Nearl three years we have waited for this day, in some ways a lifetime we have waited. Well just a few more hours and the waiting is done, and you will soon see the happiest couple to walk the face of the earth :)

I love you baby!

Bakery scene at the Metro Centre Gateshead Christmas display

Alison got back to Birmingham yesterday and has been spending the time now visiting her brother as he has been out of country for nearly the whole time Alison has been in UK. She sent me quite a few pic form her time in Sunderland and one day soon we will get all the pics together and make a few online albums. Tonight i just wanted to show you this one picture she took I think the place is the Metro Centre Gateshead. I thought the Bullring was huge, this one is nearly 300 stores! Alison said at one time the largest shopping centre in England, but not sure if it still holds that status. i think there was one to be opend near London was supposed to take that title, bt I’m not sure about when that opens or if it already has. Anyway this picture if from a Christmas display set up inside the centre. at first glance it looks to se a small replica of a gingerbread house, bakery type of thing, but look in the front right corner and you will see one of the shoppers heads and realize this is a nearly life size setting! Imagine the hours to took to get this done! and this is just a part of the display!

Those pieces of candy look as big as a guys head! :o)

Way beyond words tonight what it feels like to have our dream so near to coming true! :-) this truly was a match made in heaven. Off to sleep then, another day passed. 3 to go when I wake.

and nearer to 4 days now! :)

I really am just so full of anticipation of our reunion, knowings its forever is just beyond words.

Well Alison is still n Sunderland as I write this, spending her last evening out having dinner with some very close dear friends. she’ll catch the bus in the morning (Friday) to go back to Birmingham. She seems to have had a nice visit back to her hometown, staying at her folks home and even in the bedroom she had growing up. I wonder what memories that brought back! Without a pc I don’t have any pictures yet, but soon as I do I will post some. I wanted so much to go and meet up with Alison there in the UK and then us fly back home together, but events turning out the way they did it put a kink in those plans :( Well one day very soon we will take a holiday back there and I will get to see where she lived and meet all these people I have only spoke to by web or mail or second hand!

I was a bit worried this morning as when I spoke upon waking Alison told me it was snowing and then the next time we speke a few hours later it was still snowing! I was fighting this thought of her getting stranded there and missing her flight! Well i know its not that severe a snow storm, but things like that are always in the back of my mind. we are so close now to our dream I I’m wanting desperately for it to come quick! Well when we spoke tonight she said it had warmed up a bit and there was a little rain so the roads were clear. The last few mornings though have been very cold around the freezing mark so we’ll see how they are then. Well the highways will be clear I’m sure, just these smaller roads may have a bit of ice early on. I cant wait to see the pics though, I love seeing the snow, just dont care so much to be driving in it. But its fine when you are having someone to snuggle up to and keep each other warm! ;)

It really does feel strange to not be writing her a mail for this long stretch of time. We have faithfully wrote at least a morning and evening mail, if not more ,  for the last 970 days. Well i have written a couple of short ones just to have something there when she does get back online, but it been so much of our routine to write a mail for the other to read on waking and then one to say nite nite as well, although lately it had got to the point we were on the skype more of the evenings than not. So this has been a real change for us to not have that bit of communication and being able to share photos and such. We have had our times to speak on the cell though and those were the highlights of my day! well she’ll be back to Mandy’s tomorrow and we will be back on schedule :) Well i guess its all given me time to add a few things to the sight and play with that. but I still miss her madly. Until I hold her in my arms next Tuesday evening, I will miss her every minute.

I signed up a while back as I wrote about in this post for the google Friend Connect Preview and today got a mail that this site had been whitelisted to use it! While not replacing any of the login information of this site, its more an added feature letting you sign in to certain features of this site with using your Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account info. Its not incorporated into the core of wordpress which powers this site, it’s rather an added set of gadgets, or widgets if you prefer, such as the “shout out” box there to the right to let anyone post a quick comment or say hello. They have only a couple of gadgets available at the moment including a “rate it” gadget, with the promise of more to come, both from Google and independent developers. I was looking at several of these “shout out” widgets to use before , but most of them have so many proprietary links to ads ands services that i wasn’t interested. This is a very simple one, just comment and post! I have found over the years that no matter how easy it seems to me to post a comment to these blog entries a lot of web surfers really are just passing by and don’t have the time or know-how to do it. Well i think this one will work out well as most people I know have one of these id’s and it only takes a single click to join the site or sign in. As i mentioned its an early release so I don’t know if its available to the general public yet or not, I’m assuming so, but you know what that entails ;) It only took me a couple of minutes to get it set up on this site, the first step was to upload two files to the root of the server which lets the code work around the site. the next step was verify the files were there and the next was to generate the code for the widgets, its already set up on a default size so its only a few seconds to use that and have it running on your web-page. In my case i spent a few more minutes customising the colours to match the site. I chose two of the gadgets, a member gadget, and the comment gadget. I may play around with some others if they can do something that I don’t have already at my fingertips. I did run into a problem trying to post the code into a post- it wouldn’t work. Putting it in the sidebar widgets though was smooth as silk, worked instantly. I think it is a WordPress specific problem as the sidebar is generated from a different directory that the post contents… I think.. well I’ll play around and see what I can do with it. Just as it is now I like it as a simple way for friends to say a quick hello. I’m sure though thats just the tip of the iceberg though. so check it out and say hello! I don’t know what the plans are for these hosted blog programs like blogger and the like as right now you have to be able to upload files to the server. But I see it somehow being incorporated into blogger very soon and actually transforming that into something similar to myspace or facebook! , well the social connection part anyway.

Well with Alison in Sunderland the next few days and her mum and dad not having a pc I dont have any skype pics to show. We have spoke by cell but have to keep that a bit short since that costs and the skype is free. So anyway I figured I would pass some of the time we usually spend there by using a couple of the pictures Alison sent Saturday from some of her shopping excursions.Here’s Alison and Natalie taking a break from a hard day of shopping to pose for a picture :) You know they almost look like they could be models standing in that store window behind them! Looking good girls!

I’m not sure which store they are in front of in this picture, Alison didnt mention it, or maybe she doesnt even recall but just happened to pick that one as a good backdrop. I know she made a few trips to this huge centre in Birmingham, The Bullring. I’m assuming its inside there.

This place is huge! Although it looks packed to this old country boy Alison says its really not anything compared to what its like when its busy there,  where you can hardly move for all the people. I bet my Born2$hop  daughter would love this place! She and a couple of friends booked a 3 day trip to New York the other week to go shopping in Times Square. If I show here this now they can start planning for next year! ;)  I still cant believe all the people there, and its not even the busiest time of day. Definitely not a place if you’re claustrophobic! I would have to have a xanax before going I think. I imagine its nice in that one could find just about anything they want there, its something like a 160 stores and I think three levels with escalators in some places looking like something from out of that movie David Bowie played Jared in that my daughter used to love, Oh i cant think of the name of it now.  wait.. Labyrinth! how could I forget htat, i must have sat through it a hundred times but it still was a cool movie.

I dont know if she will have any more pics on the camera when she gets here. She has been sending a few off and on I guess to make sure she doesnt lose them from the memory card. This picture just amazes me though with all these people. and the desgin of this place is nice looking too, looks clean and open and jsut friendly. Well I’ve not been in too many places in the UK yet, but just the few I have been, I have found it actually very friendly and some very helpful people as well. Gatwick airport was one of the most enjoyable ones of mylast trip to Cyprus. Everywhere i turned there was someone offering help and guidance and in a pleasant manner.  It feels strange to not be writing a mail this morning to her. But we have spoken of course and will keep in touch through the mobiles, just this has been part of my daily routine now for nearly 3 years to wake up and have my coffee and write the love of my life every moring before going to work. Well I figured I would use the time and write this post instead. Just so happy and excited now, one week to go! YEA!!!

The prince and princess of Love

I wonder if they will let us use the palace if we dress up for our wedding?! lol

This was a pretty cool site with quite a few face cut out templates to insert your own photos. I should have spent a bit of time looking for a photo that matches the skin tones of the original photo a little better, looks like we were buried in sand up to our neck out in the Sahara or somewhere! I’m not used to seeing myself appearing to have any colour to me! Pasty white is my normal shade I think ;)

Give it a try, I’m sure you will find something here suitable to your tastes

Create your own FACEinHOLE