Today I attended a funeral of a family member, someone who I should refer to as a close family member but for circumstance never got to be called grandfather by myself or my brothers but rather by his first name. I have no idea what he felt about that he did have grandchildren that called and knew of him as granddad. I am never good at funerals, saying that this is only the fourth I've attended and I am sure it will not be my last.

This poem was read at the service, I can find no details of an author and it seems that it may be known by different names.

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free
I'm following the path God laid for me
I took his hand when I heard Him call
I turned my back and left it all.
I could not stay another day
To laugh, to love, to work or play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
I found that place at the close of the day.

If my parting has left a void
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss.
Ah yes, these things I too, will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow.
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life's been full, I savoured much.
Good friends, good times, a loved one's touch.

Perhaps my time seemed all to brief;
Don't lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me
God wanted me now, He set me free.

Author – Unknown

Gwynfor Owen Lewis passed away on the 21st December aged 86 and just a few short weeks away from his 87 birthday but I need to remember that it was this time last year he was not expected to live more than a few days (in fact he was dead for a few minutes) but somehow managed to fight for every last moment of life, and to be honest with you there are very few things that you should fight for but life has to near the top of the list. He died peacefully after attending a Christmas party at the residential home – his fight finally over.

UPDATED POST 02/01/2010

Been a few weeks since my last entry (no surprise there), got loads of excuses but all have been used before. Well thought I would post an entry but discover that my version of Wordpress is out of date so I set about updating it and only when I get to the last stage I discover that it will not work as I have the wrong version of MySQL – so checking with my hosting company I discover that I have to delete my old database and create a new one (I am typing this entry up while I wait) which has now been set up but I will have to update a few things so please if you see something not working leave me a message!

So Christmas was good, can’t really complain about the presents the photo to the left shows some of the things that I got (well the ones I was able to take a photo of) you can see I got the traditional deodorant and was expecting to get some sort of cook book. The big box is a memory foam topper and piled on top of it are a few new clothes that I also got.

I only had an issue with two presents that I got, the secret Santa present from work which was a "DEAD FRED" pen holder. Everyone else on the team seemed to have a gift that they actually wanted I got a pen holder – but I should not be ungrateful. The second present was from my father and as usual was clothing that was way to small for me. It would not be a problem except for the fact that I've had ill fitting clothes for the last few years and they take up space in my wardrobe. I was however able to take it back and swap it for something else.

The second photo shows the rest of the presents I got, you will see I had two DVD's to add to my collection and two new books, some chocolates/biscuits that I really should not eat but it would be a waste not too. I also got a new wallet to keep all that money I'm planning on saving!

I do however think that next year I will have to consider who I buy presents for, I was rather annoyed not to get something from a relative considering that I have always got her something in the past.

Really don't know where the time has gone but as we are about to hit December I thought an update was in order.

I have pretty much decided that I will not be making Christmas cards this year, the decision eventually came down to me just not having the time – I may make a few and am currently working on a cross stitch pattern which will be incorporated into a card. The cross stitch was something I had bought when I went to a craft event in Cardiff at the start of October along with some card craft CD's have to say that the quality of the CD's is poor considering they cost £25 for 3, the cross stitch however only cost a £1 and I got off to a shaky start but seem to have gotten the hang of things now but again I find myself in a race against time and we all know time always wins!!

I have also found myself back in the kitchen and spent most of yesterday baking, I made a Christmas cake and some chocolate mints. The mints were surprisingly easy to make and because I used some butter during the cooking process the chocolate has an almost fudge like taste and texture and have a nice crunch like the expensive "Matchmaker" chocolates. The Christmas cake however took a little longer to cook (three and a half hours) and I have no idea how it tastes but today I have covered it in marzipan and will covering it in icing in a week or two.

My Christmas shopping has not gotten off to the best start as two presents ordered online are unlikely to turn up as the company has gone into administration – rather annoying as it went into administration on Friday but I ordered last Sunday so the books should have been sent out Monday or Tuesday. I have contacted my card company and requested that they claim the money back and have already gone and ordered the same products from another web site, think I will remember to always pay using my credit card to make sure that I have additional protection.

The two photos show the cake once out of the baking tin and then once it was covered with marzipan, ideally I should have have cut off the top of the cake to leave a flat surface but what I actually did was turn the cake over and cover it.

I was rather saddened to see that the actor Edward Woodward had passed away today at the age of 79.

I have to say that I remember him as Robert McCall from the American television series The Equalizer, I remember as a child watching the programme and thinking that Robert McCall was great and even the premise of the programme was good with The Equalizer helping the people who had nowhere else to turn. The programme was aired in the UK in 1987 so I was under 10 but could still remember the iconic theme tune.

It was only a few months ago that I bought the season 1 box set to relive some of my old memories and have to admit that I was rather disappointed with the programme as it was not as good as I remembered, I suppose that is the problem about watching adult programmes that you remember as watching and enjoying as a child. Adults will have a completely different understanding of the programme. They do say that sometimes it is better to leave memories as they were and not try to relive them.

Of course Edward Woodward had been in a lot of other films and television programmes and of course had a successful stage career.

Again been pretty busy but not really doing a great deal, I was surprised to discover that one of my photos had been published in the local newspaper (I can cross that off the list) and the £10 book token has arrived. I checked and I actually submitted the photo back in June so guessing they must have had a quiet week.

I have also had confirmation that my subscription to "Your Family Tree" will be starting and my first magazine should arrive in about two weeks – this is going to save me £64.87 as the subscription did not cost me anything as I used my Tesco vouchers. I am still undecided if I will go to the trouble of making Christmas cards this year as I really don't know if I will have the time – will check my crafting supplies and maybe just mass produce one or two designs!

The great clean out '09 is coming along slowly but I expected that and have not even began to look at getting rid of any old clothes yet. Last Sunday I cleared out one of my CD holders and just spent some time making sure the CD's were in the correct boxes etc and threw away a lot of old computer CD's. I have however come across spare jewel cases and am still debating throwing these away. A load of 3.5in disks are due to be thrown along with the case they are all stored in – I don't think I will have a need to have them when I don't have any means to read them!

My digital photo archive¹ is coming along well with only a few more old family photos to scan before I have to go on the search for more old photos that I can obtain for the scanning process. I have added one old photo online at a few forums to see if I can obtain any information regarding it – limited success at the moment.

It's not really sunk in yet that it's the 1st November yet and means only one more pay day before Christmas, I have already started thinking about Christmas but I really will have to get started soon with the whole buying and wrapping of gifts.

1. I decided to scan as many old family photos as possible to protect them from the ravages of time [back]

When you are shopping on a limited budget you are certainly more aware of the rising cost of food. This has to be one of the first months in a very long time that I have had to use my money carefully after paying out for work on the car I realised that if I did not rain in my spending that this would be the first time ever that I went overdrawn!

It was pretty easy to see where the cuts needed to be made as I keep everything on a spreadsheet and after all the direct debits the only thing that I had any control over was my food budget and it has been going really well but last night when I was doing my weekly shop with £11 in my pocket I noticed that prices in the supermarket had increased by a stupid amount within a week for no apparent reason.

A few weeks ago I discovered that Tesco were selling Curry sauce at a bargain price so bought a tin and made chicken curry – it tasted good so last week I bought a few more tins of Tesco curry sauce as they only cost £0.04 and with some chicken and a few other things added can make a good and more importantly cheap meal. However last night the price had doubled to £0.08 a tin, now they were not on special offer last week and I should not be complaining as £0.08 is still good value but why the sudden price increase. I then get to the frozen foods section and see that the stir fry chicken which only cost me £2.49 last week would now cost me £2.99. I do wonder how many people would just do the shopping and not realise that the prices had increased – I don't expect them to put a sign up telling people that the prices have increased but I will certainly be paying more attention to the prices I am paying.

Well been a little while since my last entry and there are a number of reasons for that, the main one being that I have been kept very busy with life in general. The second reason and I don't really want to make a big thing about it is down to the fact that the next door neighbour seems to be interested in this site (I could understand them keeping an eye on another site I run) and it is quite bothersome.

Of course I can't complain as this site is open to everyone who has access to the internet but it is the amount of time which is spent "checking" to see if I have made any updates. I would have thought that this person would have more important things to do and would be more concerned about sick or dying relatives that what little old me has to say?

Anyway as I've already mentioned been kept pretty busy the last few weeks, spent a week cooking various things during September, the Turkish delight did not quite turn out as I had hoped!

The last few weeks I have been pro-active in trying to sort out my room and as regular visitors might be aware this is something that I have spoken about on numerous occasions in the past with little or limited success. A new shelf has been put up and I have actually thrown things out – surprisingly not as much as I would have thought given the space I have gained.
Saying all of that I still have a lot more to do and am hoping to look at my clothes next and get rid of those that I no longer wear or no longer fit.