Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

Some girls have dreams of big white weddings, whilst some dream of big weddings in pink. Others have different dreams, of sun, of sea and a romantic union on a white sanded beach. 2007, year of the wedding sees Stephanie, Oliver and I attend our third wedding of the year, a completion of catalogue of weddings that will see all three girls having their dreams fulfilled. After Nicola's wonderful white wedding and my sister's amazing pink parade we are packing our suitcases and leaving for Mexico on a two week trip to paradise where we will witness Steph's brother John and his fiance Nadine become husband and wife. John and Nadine, long time partners are two peas in a pod. Both have a love for the exotic and are both sporty inclined. Enter John and Nadine's house and you will be sat petrified in the corner as two lizardy/iguanary creature type things sit looking at you licking their chops in anticipation of perhaps eating you for lunch or chewing upon a limb as a snack. Jo...

Stephanie and I are delighted to officially announce that we are selling up and moving! For those who don't know, we have very fortunately been offered the opportunity to buy my Mum and Dad's house, whom themselves are moving on to pastures new. As a result of this domestic upheaval, our flat for the past three years (nearly) is now up for sale. Our current property is part of a Part Rent/Part buy scheme, whereby we own part of our property whilst the other part is owned by a housing agency. We then pay a rent amount on the outstanding share. This scheme proved invaluable to Stephanie and I, as it gave us an affordable step onto the housing ladder, one which again we are entirely grateful for. Both Stephanie and I highly recommend this method of entering the housing market and are glad to be able to offer someone else a route to the aforementioned housing ladder. Property Details: - Lounge - Kitchen - fitted with beech effect wall and base units and cooker, spaces for fridge f...

They say a week is a long time in football, but 94 days (at time of writing) since Gillinghams last league game has felt like an eternity. Every other year we have England's hype and failure to tide us over, but this year has been dull, absolutely nothing to keep us football fans remotely occupied. OK there was the Copa America, but the competition is so badly organised and matches repeated it hardly becomes watchable. In those 94 days we have seen some wholesale changes at the Gills, with Danny Spiller, Matty Jarvis, Michael Flynn, Frannie Collin, Brent Sancho, Danny Jackman , Leon Johnson, Luke Howell, Clint Easton and Ben Chorley all leaving the club. With so many player departures , including arguably our two best players (Jarvis and Flynn), I was slightly concerned that we would be struggling to field a starting XI this season, let alone a competitive one! Gillingham chairman Paul Scally came out and said that failure this season would not be an option and that the c...

Wow! What a day Jessica and James's wedding turned out to be! I knew that it was going to be a great day, but I never realised just how good it was going to be! First off, I owe my sister an apology. From her description of things, I had visions of Jessica and James's wedding being a dodgy version of Peter Andre and Jordan's! I will hold my hands firmly up in the air and say how wrong I was! The reality is, that all the things I raised my (rather excessive) eyebrows at all turned out to be really nice touches! For example love heart sweeties on all the tables, which added an air of romance to the proceedings (if there wasn't enough already)! Passing "I love you" messages and "email me" to the girl on the next table made pulling for single fellas a little bit easier! It must actually be said, the wedding very well nearly never happened! Jessica met Stephanie at the flat and together they walked into town to have their hair done. When they came back,...

Steadily creeping up on us, and here before we know it are the two 'weddings of the year'. The first one, this Saturday, will see our good friends Mark and Nicola become Mr and Mrs Pattision , followed by Jessica and James the following week. Mark and Nicola having been together for nearly as long as Stephanie and I have, and it is going to be a real pleasure watching them become husband and wife. I said it about Will and Olivia when they got engaged and it applies too with Mark and Nicola, some things are pre -destined and meant to be. For Jessica, she will be marrying James, her true knight in shining armour, who came along when she least expected it and has become a model husband in waiting and a father the girls can be proud to call Daddy. Mark and Nicola's wedding will offer Stephanie and I the first opportunity to see first hand one couple in our circle of friends get married, and over the next 18 months will be joined in holy matrimony by Mr and Mrs Buckby and Mr a...

After last weeks story about new footballing sensation Oliveria Birdinho, certain rumours have been flying around linking Oliveria with Arsenal FC. These rumours allegedly pertaining from both Grandma's whom claim to be Arsenal fans and are constantly attempting dirty tactics in an effort to wind up the male contingent of the Bird Family, in particular Oliveria's father Adam. Oliveria said (if he could) "to link me with Arsenal is a disgrace, I love my grandmothers dearly, they look after me, feed me, change me, but to suggest I would don the red shirts of Arsenal is nothing short of blasphemy". In an attempt to silence his mother, and mother in law and protect Oliveria's integrity, Adam today is releasing a computer generated image along with the following statement "please take a look at this picture, download it, print it and put it in your purse, because it is the first and last time Oliveria will ever appear in an Arsenal shirt!". Oliveria's gr...

At only six months old, footballing sensation Oliveria Birdinho has already turned out scintillating performances for three major football clubs. Oliveria, making his league debut for Gillingham (pictured below) at only four months old would have said, (if he could) "playing for Gillingham is something special, I am a third generation Gillingham fan and both my father and grandfather burst into tears when I walked out at Priestfield for the first time". After several barnstorming performances in Gillingham colours, it wasn't long before Oliveria was catching the eye of bigger clubs. Oliveria said, (if he could) "Swapping the Gills for Barcelona was a wrench, it tore my heart in two. My uncle Reaso is still not talking to me, but my agents, Buckby and Williamson engineered the move and the opportunity was too good to turn down". Oliveria found the going tough in the Catalan sunshine and explained to us (if he could) why the move went sour "My mum is really w...

As we enjoy the longest day of the year, Steph and I will be having a minor celebration as Oliver reaches six months old. We won't obviously be popping any champagne corks, but we will be taking a look back at the past six months, how our journey has gone by so quickly, how Oliver has brought so much fun into our lives and how we cannot remember our lives before he arrived! Towards the end of Stephanie's pregnancy I thought about the idea of taking a photograph of Oliver each day and posting it on the web, so that we could capture his changes each day. Steph wasn't initially keen on the idea, thinking that I was mad, or just jesting! It wasn't really until Oliver was a week old, Christmas had passed and I had realised we had photos each day for Oliver's first week. This was then that my idea resurfaced and I decided to carry on with it. Six months down the line, and we still have a photograph of Oliver each and every day. It hasn't been easy though, we have had ...

Poor Oliver is suffering at the moment with a terrible cold, or baby hayfever , we are not too sure. I am hoping it is just a cold as to be struck down by hayfever at such a young age is a bit harsh and not very fair! He has been ok during the day, despite his sneezing fits, which are actually quite funny, and he doesn't seem to mind too much. It is at night when he is sleeping that we have been having problems the past few days. His nose is blocked up, so he is forced to breathe through his mouth. For a baby this can be a little confusing at first, especially if your sucking on a tummy for all your might! Next week sees his first little landmark when he becomes six months old! I can hardly believe it myself, but as usual time has flown by and six months really will have passed. I am planning a little half way stage blog next week when I will talk about his photo gallery, but seeing how he is suffering a little at the moment prompted this spur of the moment blog. Even thou...

One of the great uses of the web is the way in which you can keep track of your family tree. There are hundreds of sites dedicated to the art of ancestory, including Ancestry.co.uk and Genes Reunited . There is now a (fairly) new site to add to your Genealogy favourites - Geni. Once registered, unlike some sites, free of charge you will be able to quickly and very easily start compiling your family tree and seeing just what relationship a distant relative is to you. Not only can you quickly compile a very complicated tree you can invite your relatives to join and add to your tree using their email address in the hope that someone can help out with that missing family link, you can add photographs and personal history about that person and all sorts of other information that you may not think necessary. I have only really used the site for a couple of hours and already I have 118 people added to my tree, and I have only gone as far as my grand-parents (on both sides)! Granted, the Bir...

Growing up as a Gillingham supporter often caused me some ridicule and as a way of combating the abuse thrown my way it often became easier to say that I was also a Liverpool fan. Liverpool being the "fashionable" side of the mid-late 80's when I was growing up. Dad was also a Liverpool fan, often going to see Liverpool in cup finals at Wembley including the 85 final at Wembley stadium. Last night, with Liverpool playing AC Milan in Athens I was keen to get back to Gravesend and head to Gareth's house and watch it on his newly installed cinema screen. I am not going to use the word television as the monster situated in his lounge is not a TV by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, if I was to look out the back window of my flat I would be able to watch the game quite comfortably without having to make the two mile journey to his new gaff. Not only were the gods against Steven Gerrard and the millions of scousers whom travelled to Athens, they were well and tru...

Having allowed Stephanie access to my blog and her excellent account of her weekend away it is now back to me and my random ramblings of nothing in particular. OK , maybe not nothing, but one thing I wanted to get of my chest. The FA Cup final... the pinnacle of the football season, the countries best two teams fighting blood, guts and tears to win the greatest cup competition in the world, all in front of the largest TV audience of the year and in the case of this years final, back at Wembley with 90,000 people watching from a brand new stadium. With Stephanie off out practicing her sign language with her tutors, the boys out in Prague for Mark's stag weekend, and my Dad sunning himself in Antigua my choice of viewing partners were few and far between. As it was, Oliver and I sat in readiness for our first FA Cup final together. As we sat an enjoyed our pre-match refreshments of a bottle of beer (me) and a bottle of formula (Oliver), the BBC did there best to hype up the game,...

Adam has told me many times that I should write my own blog. I have always enjoyed reading Adam's - his thoughts and feelings have always put a smile on my face. Waiting for the right topic/subject, the time has now come for me to write my own blog titled - Birdy's Bognor Hen Do May 2007 - The Official Story When Adam's sister, Jessica, announced that she was getting married, she asked me to be her Maid of Honour. I was shocked, honoured, privileged to name a few feelings. I felt like I owed her something and the only way I could see was to arrange the best Hen Weekend that she would remember forever. Jessica decided that an adult only, 70's weekend at Butlins in Bognor Regis was the place to be. So after a few weeks of working out who was coming it was booked. It wasn't until the middle of April that my sister, Carly, said to me "Have you started to sort out the itinerary?" I didn't even know what that meant. I had to arrange rules, forfeits, games an...

I was planning on writing a blog today, celebrating the joyous occasion at Anfield last night, as Liverpool reached their seventh European Cup final, their second in three years. The fact that it was a hard fault battle against the likes of the unlikeable Robben, Drogba and the "cannot make my mind up about him" Mourinho made it all the sweeter. Poor Oliver whom was attempting a peaceful nights sleep was probably wondering what the hell his Daddy was doing two inches away from the TV trying to scream quietly and jumping up and down like a rabid banshee. However, my pre thought blog entry was instantly scrapped when I read this article on the BBC website. "Gravesend announce change of name" my Google homepage told me. Naturally I was intrigued as to what this meant, I thought maybe they had dropped the Northfleet part, as in some media circle the Northfleet is never displayed (possibly because Gravesend and Northfleet is too long or something). Instead, it turns ou...

It has been nearly a year since I started up my blog and as yet have not even posted 50 entries. There are hardcore people out there who blog, once, twice, maybe more in a day. Getting hold of a decent blog, like this one (!) is hard to find, that's why there are feedburners and feed readers so that you can search under blogs that you may or may not find interesting. One of the biggest blog topics is football, or across the pond Soccer as it is know. There are litterally millions of blogs worth reading on a daily basis. I use the Google Reader plugin on my personalised Google homepage, so that when a new blog entry in written I can read it from my homepage without having to remember to navigate to their site. Here are some links to some of the best footballing blogs I have come across so far: Brian Moores Head An online version of the old Gils fanzine, has been mentioned in my blogs before, but seeing as we are on the subject... Culture of Soccer An American blog, but has lo...

I have not posted a blog here now for nearly a month, which by my standards, and web standards in general is a long time! Nothing of note has really happened, just been going through day to day life of commuting, working, commuting, catching up with Steph, watching Oliver sleep, sleeping myself and repeating the process over again. It may sound a little bland and uninteresting, but the reality is that work has been great! Busy, but great! Catching up with Steph has been great, not had much quality time together but the time we have has been spent in contentment as opposed to screaming at each other, which is not our style really anyway! Watching Oliver sleeping as you can imagine is the highlight of my day! Generally he is already sleeping when I get home, so I miss the best part of his day, but occasionally he will wake up and we will have a little play we have a good half hour of him bouncing on my knee whilst he watches in bewilderment as I gurn at him. Not quite sleeping throug...

Just under 7 years since Dietmar Hamman buried the last goal at the old Wembley Stadium past an equally creaking David Seaman the new Wembley re-opened it's doors for the first time on Saturday as it hosted an England under 21 match against Italy. The redevelopment programme had been beset with problems, delays and increasing cost's. In all honesty I had not been too bothered by all the stories, as ultimately once the stadium was finally built I knew we would have a stadium to be proud of. On Saturday afternoon that fact was confirmed to me. Getting tickets for the first game was a challenge in itself with the website crashing almost immediately the tickets went on sale! Determined not to be beaten I spent a good half hour hitting F5, (the refresh key) and opening multiple windows of the same page. Lo and behold I had beaten the cyber goalie and had secured the prize of four tickets to the game! Once the tickets had arrived a good week before the game itself, I tried to work...

You Tube as everyone knows has some great, and some not so great videos, but trawling around for some Gills related videos uncovered some great finds. Unfortunately some of the better ones have since been removed for copyright purposes, but these appear to still be working. Bob Taylor's salmonesque last minute winner against Fulham This match would eventually be remembered for all the wrong reasons, but for last minute goals against your at the time biggest rivals, you can't get any better than this! Carl Asaba against Colchester A new one for me, as I had never seen this one before. Another player, whom never quite hit the highs elsewhere as he did with us. Will be remembered quite possibly for his manner of departure as opposed to goals like this one. Dean Macdonald He may only be slightly taller than Oliver, but he has scored some great goals for the Gills this season! This video shows four of them, including the amazing last minute goal against Chesterfield (you had to be t...

On March 24th, after seemingly a million years in the making, Wembley National Stadium will host it's first game after being completely rebuilt. The England under 21 team, being managed on the day by Nigel Pearson will take on Italy under 21's in front of a crowd of 60,000. This match has been organised as a ramp up event in order for the FA to test the stadium before it gets its final safety certificate to host the FA Cup Final on May 19th. What makes this match even extra special is that I am going! I joined up yesterday in a virtual queue amongst the many others who tirelessly hit F5 in the hope that the refreshed page would bring entry into the FA's ticketing website instead of one of the three error pages that I seemed to get for near on an hour. Whether or not the match will remain historically as the "first game", or will be overshadowed by the FA Cup final remains to be seen. But in my eyes I will be one of the first people at the new stadium and something...

I tend not to write too much about life as a Gills supporter, purely because I find other people manage to sum things up a lot better than I can. In particular the boys at Brian Moores Head whom have made the transition to traditional fanzine production to online "blogging" with relative ease. The match reports and "headitorials" more often than not capture the mood of the moment and pretty much sum up the events of a particular game or event in a nutshell. With the current mood amongst the supporters being of doom and gloom the following articles ( here and here ) were posted recently and cover a lot of what I have been witnessing at Priestfield over the past season or two. They also prompted a lot of my own thoughts on current life as a Gills supporter. I sent those two articles to my mate Reaso, who is forever a Gills optimist and he wrote back" don't worry, we will be fine, I can feel it". But I couldn't quite find his level. I am actually de...