Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

For the past six weeks or so Stephanie and I have been members of LoveFilm , a postal rental service whereby for a fixed monthly fee, you can watch as many movies from their database as logistically possible. Simply browse their catalogue, select what films you would like to watch and they randomly choose two for you to watch at home. Once you are finished, send them back and they’ll send you two more. Being parents now, a visit to the cinema is a rare occasions, we have to invariably find a babysitter and so the last minute spontaneity of our courtship is something we’ve long lost. With our LoveFilm membership it gives us a chance to catch up on what everyone else has been watching and talking about for the past few years and see if there are any films that break the monopoly of my top ten list. We’ve all probably been asked, “what’s your favourite film” and we’ve probably all got an answer, for whatever reason. Like a book, what you may hate another person will love, what you’v...

Last Saturday, the 21st of May, passed just like any other, much to the confusion and dare I say it - annoyance to a preacher named Harold Camping and his followers. Harold Camping is a Christian Evangelist and predicted with utmost certainty that on this date, the world would come to a catastrophic end for millions, and the start of something wonderful for the believers of Christ, as this date would see the ‘second coming’ or the ‘rapture’ as prophesied in biblical texts. It would be easy to laugh, to ridicule and use Mr Camping as another example of Christian eccentricity but their are plenty of Christians making obscene and outlandish claims on a daily basis, such as the one about living life as a Christian means that you are not allowed to mix with non believers, or that two family members cannot socialise as their churches have different beliefs. But those people don’t get the negative publicity and ridicule as a good old “end of world” proclamation does. In fact, Mr Campi...

Sometimes we forget what a truly beautiful country that we live in. We get stuck in the monotony of life, the same places, faces, commute to work, back again, routines and school runs and sometimes you need a reminder that it need not be that way. Our country has sights worth seeing, villages worth visiting and natural habitats that allow children to get up close and personal with wildlife and animals. Last week, Stephanie, Oliver and I spent four nights in Weymouth with Stephanie’s parents, Pat and Colin. We collected tickets out of the newspaper which allowed us to apply for a five day break at any of the country’s Haven holiday parks - all for the bargain price of £9.99. With Oliver not yet in school, it was the perfect opportunity for us to take a break outside of term time for what’s likely to be the final time! On arrival at the Seaview holiday park, after a nightmare two hour delay on the M25 we were longing for a swim in the pool, or a refreshing drink in the late after...

Next weekend the FA Cup final will be contested at Wembley stadium, the home of football, the closing chapter of another dramatic season of English league football. The trophy will be awarded to the winner of either Stoke City or Manchester City, two teams that I have no real association with other than the last time Manchester City played a final at Wembley it was against my Gillingham team, managed at the time by Tony Pulis, ironically now in charge of Stoke City, which brings to life a wonderfully scripted sub-plot to what is already an intriguing game. Since Stoke City reached the final, blog posts and online analysis have focused on Tony Pulis, that day at Wembley and a recent interview on the BBC Sport website revealed some insight into the thoughts of the man and what it would be like to avenge that day nearly 12 years ago. Feeling nostalgic comes naturally to me, particularly when looking back at Gillingham Football Club’s finest ever moment. That game, Gillingham vs Manc...

For the past thirteen weeks, Stephanie and I have been harbouring good news. I’m proud to finally announce that Stephanie is pregnant again and that come November, we’ll hopefully be celebrating the safe arrival of a long awaited brother or sister for Oliver. As much as you try planning life’s big events, moving out, getting married, having children they do inevitably get mixed up with circumstances, uncertainties and the perennial question of “am I doing the right thing?” Making the decision to finally have a child with Stephanie after so long in courtship set off a huge chain of events that tied us to one another for the rest of our lives. This time around the decision to have another child came with a sense of freedom and an acceptance that what we was about to set off on was another journey of excitement and trepidation. Having a child the first time around, everything is new, every day brings something different, whether it be Stephanie’s body changing in response to nature’...

For the past three months I have been attending a Creative Writing class, which has been paid for by the Agency I work at under the idea of " learning something new ". Last week we had a feedback session on short stories that were written based simply upon a song title, of which we had to choose from a long list of options. Feedback on my short story was really positive, based upon the song title "You’re Nobody till Someone Loves You", so I've made the brave, or mad decision to share it with you via my blog. Please feel free to leave your own opinion on the comments below - it makes a huge difference knowing what people liked and of course the parts that could be improved. Dear Mum, I never thought I’d write that word; ‘Mum’, those three little letters, a single syllable word, an affectionate or lazy term for Mother. Nor did I believe that I would have one, a mother I mean, a matriarch, an emotional leader and provider of a family. I’ve always had one of...

There is a reason I don’t own a Ferrari, other than the fact that I don’t have enough money to afford one, something would happen to it. Something ludicrous, a quirk of fate or once in a lifetime sequence of events would befall it and it would break, someone would break it, or failing that, a meteorite would fall out of the sky and land directly on top of it. Last week, whilst sat eating our tea, we heard an almighty bang. Outside, there had been another crash. This time however, we found ourselves unwittingly involved. One of the vehicles had somehow managed to lose control, spin and crash into the rear of our car which was parked for the night by the side of the road. The impact of that, pushed our car onto the footpath and forward into the car parked in front of ours, the neighbours shiny, near vintage Mercedes. The female driver luckily was unhurt, which is the main thing of course, but yesterday, our worst fears were realised when the garage called and confirmed what we had su...

In the May of 1995, half a lifetime ago, my parents somehow managed to put together enough funds to take Jessica and I on a holiday that we’d never forget, to Orlando in Florida. Fast forward sixteen years and my parents are getting ready to relive the dream, with Jessica, her husband and their merry band of children, recreating childhood memories and igniting a new love affair within the minds of the next generation. Whilst they bask in the warmth of the Floridian sunshine, I shall, unfortunately be making do with the unpredictable comforts of the UK and have resigned myself long ago that with a jealous heart and misty eyes I’ll have to listen to their accounts, stories and things that I’ve missed upon their return. At least I can console myself with the fact that I have been immensely blessed and have a vault of memories to withdraw from and remain hopeful that Stephanie, Oliver and I will, with luck have our own trip in the future, once we have finished putting our family togeth...

Time off work is always nice to have, but last week I had the extreme pleasure of three days spent entirely with Oliver, the little man. This was the same week in that Stephanie and I found out which primary school he’d would be starting in September. The combination of these events and the things that I surprisingly learnt about Oliver led me to ask the question - where on earth has our little baby gone and just where has this little boy come from? Of course I perfectly understand the concept of time and growth, but it continues to amaze me when I see our little boy doing everyday things of his own accord. Like running over to piece of play apparatus in the park and hanging himself upside down unassisted whilst I run over in blind panic thinking that he is going to fall, snap his back and crush our world around us. But he is fine, totally in control of himself and swinging happily, with the agility and strength of a monkey. On Tuesday past, we visited Riverside Country Park w...

Last week I wrote about a team of people who are on the cusp of fulfilling of a dream, to drive a fire engine around the world and how it reminded me of things that I’m still to do. Namely a road-trip across America, to see the sights, enjoy the tastes and smells whilst embracing a diversity of culture that is barely rivalled in any other country on the globe. Someone else once had a dream. He spoke about it in-front of millions and was ultimately murdered in cold blood because of it. His name was Martin Luther King. Imagine then if you can, an alternative road-trip, one that’s taken in a DeLorean like Marty McFly, which allows you to drive across America whilst zigzagging through the great space-time continuum. How different would your story be? What would you have made of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, which you probably learnt about, like me - in school? Add to the learnt dates, names, facts and figures, an understanding of the depth of feeling and assess how ...

Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sails a freight ship carrying its usual load of shipping containers heading for Europe, or Valencia in Spain to be exact. Within one is an extra special shipment, a Fire Engine affectionately known as ‘Martha’, who is on her way back to London after an epic nine month global journey which has seen her circumnavigate the globe in the name of charity. I first heard about Follow that Fire Engine towards the end of 2009 as the first Facebook event invitations got issued from a friend of a friend. James Morrow, or Jimbo as he was introduced to me by my good friend Stuart, ironically a fire fighter himself. These event invitations were fundraisers for an expedition of people, who were raising money and awareness for their pending trip. An ambitious journey which would see them driving a fire engine around the world aiming to raise money for three charities close to the hearts of all of them, whilst attempting to break a Guinness Book Reco...

Last week a friend suggested that I have a look to see what national day/week it was and write a blog post upon the subject. A great suggestion I thought, but the timing was slightly out. The only day in March that really appealed to me was World Book Day , but having already published my post for the week I thought I’d save that particular subject for the future. Since then, I’ve been assigned a task - to write an article about my local Library and so this week, I’ve concocted a blog post which is a mixture of all of that! My article, which I have submitted as part of my writing class was to look at our local library and talk about it, as if writing for a newspaper perhaps. With it came a 500 word limit; meaning I was up and over that long before I’d even made an introduction! Within it, I spoke about our own central library in Gravesend, how Kent County Council are going against the current trend and are actually placing some much welcome investment in the form of a redevelo...