Who’s there?

It three in the morning and its pitch black. I hear a noise and my eyes flick open as wide as they will go. Lying perfectly still I can hear the hum of the fridge, the tick of the clock and the gentle snooze of my wife and kids. But what is that other noise? I hear footsteps go moving from one end of the apartment gradually getting neared and nearer. “My family, how can I protect them, I need a baseball bat or something. I know they are trying to be quiet, but I can still hear them. The sound is getting closer. They are above me! OH MY GOD!… whow, whow, whow, Hang on , wait, calm down. Of course there are footsteps trying not to make a noise above you. There is an apartment above you dimlow! You don’t just have attic space above you anymore”. Yep, you guessed it, I woke up first thing this morning and completely forgot where I was. Needless to say once you give yourself a scare like that is it not always easy to get back off to sleep. I really need to sleep as it is a big day for the little man today. That’s what we call my son, for the record. Yep it is Zack’s first Day at school and he is going on the bus on his own.

We all got up early and made sure we had everything ready to go. Book bag, lunch, pencils case, books… oh yeah, and the boy too! We all went off to the end of the road (about 10 minutes walk) to where the bus is due to pick up Zack. We were a little concerned at first at the lack of other kids about but we soon relaxed after seeing the bus appear at the entrance to our community. Here it come slowing down… to speed up… right past the stop, over the ramp and right down the road. Bugger! We missed it. Luckily for us it turns out that it does a kind of loop to pick the kids up and then comes back and picks us up. There he goes my little boy into the big wide scary world all on his own. It’s alright, I’m OK!



On with the day and I am ready to drive my car to work for the first time! With all my insurance sorted out, I head off to sit in my new car. I am actually pleasantly surprised. I know this sounds really bad, and I will probably get a lot of stick for this, but this is the first time I have seen the car in the daylight. Shocking, I know, but it looks really quite nice. Leather seats, very spacious, not too shabby! I don’t quite know what we going to do with the extra 2 seats in the back, but I seems that kids like the idea of having options open to them when sitting in the back of the car. It can have all the leather seats and cruise control it likes, but it won’t detract from the blacked out windows and sliding doors. I am slightly ashamed to admit this but when I pulled up at the gas station to fill up, I did actually walk between the two front seats and open up the sliding doors at the side to jump out. Literally “jump” out singing the A-Team theme song quite loud. DUN-DA-DA, DUN, DUN , DAAAAAAA. It turns out that you can take people quite by surprise while they are refueling when you do that. Nobody said anything, even though I had my “quit yo jibba jabba, FOOL!” line already to go.

At this particular petrol station they had televisions built into the pumps so you can be entertained while filling up (although I was getting more looks than the TV’s). If I had the car before I ordered the cable in our house I would have simply driven out the gas station and watched Telly there! They even have popcorn at the kiosk.

I am still car pooling with Dan so we are taking it in turns to drive. I was quite impressed that I managed to find his house kind of without a GPS/SatNav? I started with it on but the voice of the woman really starts to grate after a while, especially if she has it in her mind to go a specific way. She obviously doesn’t know about the road works, but will she listen! Will she bol**cks.

I quite enjoy the commute to work, but you really have to keep your eye on the lanes. It is quite common for the right lane to come to an end, or the left lane to suddenly turn left. If you get in the wrong lane you have to your quick thinking, years of driving experience and the knowledge that you car is probably the least valuable thing on the road (which includes road kill) to tactically suggest other divers let you in. It seems that in Carmel drivers tend to be nice and gracious, but in Indianapolis city center it is survival of the fittest.

I don’t have any new dents on the car, but the engine warning light has come on again. Its only bad if it flashes right?



This is on the side of the building, just up from where we park. Not sure if it is true or not but it made me laugh!



The view from our office when I leave at night