Ahh, how do you start dating again?

[Claire2009]

I've kinda met someone I like, he's single - I'm single (nearly 2yrs) we both have kids, we both like each other, he's asked me out, I've kinda not really responded, and now we're in limbo, I want to ask for his number but am slightly scared/nervous/unsure of how to ask, where to begin?

He's currently working two streets away and I pass him most days, stop for a chat etc, I just don't know how to further things ...?

Had a tough match last night...god do i ache today. Had to come down the stairs very slowly this morning...think i overstretched myself trying to reach a shot last night.
More tiling....wish it was finished...Want to start on the pantry and put some shelves up for all my gadgets.

I want my kitchen tidy.....helpppppp!!!!

at you overstretching yourself - i have an image of you flying thru the air, arms and legs flailing as you desperately reach for the feathered thingy...or gliding gracefully like the virgin airways bird on the advert - either way you land with a thud in a heap i'm probably not taking this fad obsession seriously enough.

i do know all about aches tho - am still spending most of the day in the woods clearing out old trees - and its cold, and now the wind is roaring away, could be more snow on the way and ive still loads of garden to dig before i can get my drive down!

could be worse tho - could have tiling to do. i did consider a dark electric blue - kind of art decco for the kitchen, tho as theyre on fairly close opposite walls i thought it too dark.

anyway - lucky you getting to go skiing - is years since ive had a holiday - only manage to grab a couple of days off now and then and mainly thru the winter, is far too much to do thru the summer to take hols. will see what this year brings as boss is selling up.

oh, and we seem to have wandered off on a tangent or two - i keep noticing the title pop up - dont you meet likeminded fellas(those with a fad for badminton) while out playing?

oops - missed a bit there....

go and tidy your kitchen

what title ..d'you mean 'how do you start dating again'...???????

SORRY Claire weve run off with your thread...

Have you been doing your job long oh lord of the manor? Do you just like the outdoor life.
You should be pretty fit doing all this
hard work
Are you doing you driveway yourself.

Im still awake ,cant seem to sleep tonight.its horrible lying awake when you know you should be asleep.

Dont meet alot of single ,sporty guys even at all the competitions. They are all attached and like you said earlier,its only the weird ones that are single. Bad breath ,strange habits,smokers,obsessives, introverts, total bores with nothing to say, just plain total nuttersor

Im not too hard to please,but a good interesting conversation related with some enthusiasm seems to be lacking in so may people. All they seem to want to talk about is depressing things and them,them,them.Not that i want to talk about me..but it does get a bit tedious. Conversations dont seem to be two way any more.

Maybe Im just getting fussy in my old age

Fad
Dont you like sport....Im not addicted ,just very competitive when i do play,probably in most things I do.Is that bad?

im cold,wet bedraggled and muddy. brrrr
Been out in the garden raking all the leaves up. Filled my green bin. It was raining when i started (yes i am mad)and torrential when i had finished. So i am now inside getting warm....

Garden looks slightly tidier. Must keep on top of it as i am planting loads of herbs and salady things this year. They were quite successful last year and saved me a fortune on salads.

good evening - i also had the wet and bedragled feeling today - got home and took wellies and socks off on the doorstep so i could wring my socks out! wasnt going to come in the house with them on, i know my quarry tiled step was cold but my feet were so cold and wet i couldnt tell - the things you do
spent the morning weilding my lovely chainsaw until it was all too wet and slippy - its poured down here today. meant that while you cleared leaves i cleaned cobbles ...i must be mad - tho it does look loads better now - unlike my garden.
and yes i'll do the drive myself - needs to be two cars wide so i dont have to keep pulling my car out for ds to get out of the garage. have a builder mate who has a concrete lorry mate whose supplying very cheap concrete. i just have lots of digging to do - then builder mate will don his wellies and help lay it - am all excited
and yes i do like all kinds of sports. tho never seem to have had much in the way of time to partake. and when i watch dd at hockey matches i tend to be just as excited/disappointed when the opposition score/miss - tho am careful to make the right noises at the appropriate times - dd is very competitive, has been player of the year for the last two years in the local leagues - no idea where she gets the wont be beaten gene from

oh - hate it when you cant get to sleep - tho lately ive been so tired it hasnt been a problem - you could always stick tiles on very quitely

have a great weekend - i'm hoping to stay warm and dry...which means i'll head for the moors - just cant help it

expect youre having an early night tonight - but yes, ive being doing the same kind of work for over 10 years one way or another - have worked for lots of different people part time, dropped on the estate job by chance a couple of years ago - called round to fix a car - have been there since. before all that i was in industry - went all over the country - onshore and off. it was well paid but dull, i'm now poorly paid but enjoy what i do - for about a third of the salary . isnt much else i can do now - wont go into industry again and dont have a degree or much else. have worked for and with the builder mate now and then and he's baffled as to why i'm still there - has offered to take me on and pay more but thinking about it i just love the proper outdoors - and i'm pretty much my own boss for now.

found anywhere to ski yet? just remembered - i once took the kids skiing in our old vw camper - well not literally, was a dry slope in somerset - somewhere near cheddar gorge? i really went to go in the caves but found a ski slope near by, was great fun and so slippery and fast! not too much in the way of apres ski tho

Early night....whats that!!!!!!!went out for a malaysian curry into manchester... loved the lemon grass and coconut.

DS1 and girlfriend are coming back from uni today. DS1 is going out with his mates and i am going to see Avatar with his GF. than maybe for a drink

Not had time to look for hols yet,been orgainising what DS2 needs to go to Costa rica in summer with the school,injections and anti malarials etc. Wish i was going!!!!!Dont think he'd appreciate that somehow.

My friend has just come back from malta where she helps to run a diving school and I have to say i am tempted to to go to Malta to do the scuba with DS2 instead and to see abit of sun too.

We both qualified as padi divers a couple of years ago in Greece. Its brilliant...Im hooked on it.Im in my own little world...on the sea bed....in a environment where you can actually hear the fish eating...its amazing skiing....or diving....which one will win??????????

i'd go for diving any day - just as long as its warm - tho i doubt i'll be struggling with that descision any time soon.

meanwhile a night at the pics sounds good - ive just been to tesco

was it good at Tesco,were the veg ok and the salad pleased to see you{grin]

Film....Avatar 3D was amazing....although i felt a bit like Joe 90 with the uber sexy 3D glasses

The effects were fantastic and at times you felt as though you could just reach out and touch things.

After falling over a whole row of people,trying to find our pre-booked seats (which some KIND person had taken grrrr)we just picked 2 really good seats with n oone in front.Sat there with over-sized bag of salty popcorn-large shared coke,bag of revels...felt like a big kid again......(note to self...must do more of these girly nights out)

this is becoming an endless job.....just doing lots of cut tiles today,corners and under the units...doesnt look as though i have done much for my efforts.

Not looking forward to taking the central heating controller off the wall to tile underneath it!!!!!!!!!!!!think i might leave that til the warmer weather incase anything goes wrong,there seems to be so many wires coming out of it.

Just found some dodgy wiring from a so calles qualified electrician. Had a funny feeling the kitchen fitters were a bit dodgy when i found out they werent corgi registered. (gas approved now)Just had a look up the back of the boiler and found the isolator switch stuffed up the back,not even attached to the wall.

I really do wish there was some way of getting these people fined heavily for dangerous work.He was a subcontractor from a crap kitchen company cheshire.

good old kitchen showrooms - they rarely employ their own fitters let alone proper tradesmen like plumbers or electricians - sounds like you got messrs bodgeit and scarper
i renovated a cottage a bit ago and put a new kitchen in, rewired it etc. then a proper electrician came to wire up new boiler and he asked me to put the wiring in for it/chase cables etc - because it meant going in a cramped loft and he didnt want to get dirty! he looked thru the hatch and wouldnt go in - was a really low crawl space thru years of debris under purlins. just said he'd be back tomorrow! i wasnt bothered as i'd gutted the whole building over the winter. was so funny tho - his apprentice had a cloths brush and he dusted him down before they left - was very 'jeeves and woosterish'

as for tiling - the tricky bits are my favourite! i have a diamond tipped elec saw that can do cut outs in the middle of a tile - is brilliant! i put switch fronts in the centres of tiles just because i can - oh the symmetry....what did you say about obsessives?

and i may disappear - i have at last bought a new car...well, another one. and it smells of 1983!! was built and first sold in the summer that i left school! from a garage in my then home town! i probably saw it tearing round. its a lovely little sunburst xr2 - and its heading for santa pod if i get a move on. it is going to go so fast have already started dismantling it - is tucked away at work to keep it safe and dry....must stop obsessing

enjoy your tiling, bet you can't wait to have the kitchen back together.

I dont mind the tricky bits...it just doesnt look as tho im achieving much....i too have a diamond cutter the rotary water one..its brilliant. My tiles are small so i have lots of cuts to do.

I re-wired my mums kitchen when i fitted a new one, a few years ago and TBH im going to have to replace the wire to my boiler so that i can get the isolator somewhere near the controller.( hes cut it too short and stuffed it up the back...lazy bugger)That means taking the floor up in DS2 bedroom as all the wires are under the floorThese so called qualified peolpe are such rip off merchants. It makes me so mad. Why cant they do a proper job. Thankfully found a brilliant plumber just before xmas, so he is indelibly in my phoneand i know a good roofer.

i was trying to picture my kitchen with dark blue tiles...were you joking

the showroom did have its own fitters but they still had to be paid seperately. It was the owners brother and his skivvy. Should have asked them to leave on the first day when the driver strated helping by cutting a piece of external pipe on my new patio doorstep. Soon bollocked him for that and asked why the driver was helping. Later that night i could smell gas and then found out it was coming up through the cavity wall into my sons bedroom ad i could smell it round the light switch. Went ape with them in the morning as they hadnt sealed the pipes properly. Wish i had asked them to go now,but i have seen jobs that are alot worse than mine. Found out they hadnt carried oin with their corgi registering...should have reported them as they could have blown me and my boys up if i had turned the light on.

bet you are cold today..it zero degrees here today..brrrrrr

Going out with an old friend for a curry tonight after he has been to the manchester derby. It wil be fun to catch up...cant wait.
Hope you have had a good few days.
What are you up to at the weekend...anything exciting!!!!!!

hi there - have been a bit busy - not a bad thing but time is flying!

first - Arghhh!! your 'would be' gas fitter sounds horrendous - i'd have been on the phone to the company and told them you weren't having htem back in the house and threatened legal action. i do allsorts but wont touch gas for other people - isnt worth the risk - am fine with elec and water, tho double check everything incase of leaks. but gas - have you seen the appartment block in belgium that went up last night?

as for your dodgy boiler switch - you shouldnt need to run a new cable as long as theres enough to get a junction box in. am guessing the boiler is at wall unit height and boxed in. ideally the switch should easily accessible standing on the floor and be close to the boiler. wouldnt have it exposed and just above the worktop tho as too easy for someone to switch it off by mistake. if you can get a junction box in then run a cable to a better position for the switch. cables dont have to be chased in - they can be ran in trunking (the cheap white stuff from b&q will do tho a bit utilitarian) - as long as no cable shows. personally tho i'd bury the box in the wall (galv steel or plastic), chase cable in, cover with plastic capping and plaster up. put the new switch directly below it if possible - is best practice for cables to run up or down from switches. as for moving the programmer, new ones are on an industry standard backplate with standard wiring - mark everything, take photos, tho can be found on internet.

what else? i'm trying to finish my loft conversion - just bought loads more wood so going to be busy, the house is a mess, have 12 foot lengths of timber on the living room floor!

oh.. ive been distracted by my lovely xr2

have stripped it out and have a dining room full of car interior - even the dashboard is in there! have some strengthening to do to it ready for the rollcage to go in - am all excited then a bit more welding and put it back together. not bringing it home till bodywork is all done. and still on with digging out drive! once thats done and car home then the engine comes out and gets stripped, see whats in there - isnt standard so need to see whats been done. then put that back, give it a service and want it on the road by end of march. is going to be one of those years i think.

and blue - ive a new belling oven with a blue time display - is really vivid - like the art decco blue glass tiles. wouldnt have gone tho, kitchen too small.

hope your evening out went well - mine was spent at b&q - we got kicked out as they closed

is back to the woods tomorrow - and yes it is rather cold tho i'm out in it every day so dont notice that much. expect youll be spending the day in the kitchen - not fun!

Yes the boiler is at eye level height and boxed in.It has a white plastic box with a switch on it but
I presume you mean the bacolite black junction boxes. I dont think there is enough room and i would prefer to sink that in the wall and plaster over it,but there isnt enough room. Do you think i am Barry Bucknall?????
The electrician has cut the wire a bit short from the bedroom above and put it in plastic piping running down the side of the boiler. Even if i release it from the back of the boiler it wont be in line with the control unit so it will look a bit crappy. Will see if i can cut the pipe and put it inside the adjoining cupboard. If not will have to put a new wire down the piping...bum!

Your dining room must look delightful

Had a good curry with an old friend who was extremely happy as Man Utd won.

Done alot of tile cutting today rounfd the plugs...youd be proud of me....work of bloody art!!!!!!!!

cool i do like the sound of your tiling

as for bacolite? think thats only in museums! and plastic pipe sounds even worse than trunking - sure youll think of something.

meanwhile your curry night out sounded good - mine was spent working on the car then a dash to tesco - no wonder i'm single

are you suggesting im old

i thought all junction boxes were that black stuff.
Yes a car in the dining room does smack of a single man somehow

Im trying to create this picture of you with what you have told me and the car in the dining room has thrown me,just a tad???????You must have a big dining room!!!!!

Up in the loft today...noticed a damp patch on the bedroom ceiling...the felt has gone so must ring my roofer friend tomorrow...god all this expense and i want to go on holiday. Its taking all my pennies

had a chilli with the neighbours last night which was yummy and a few glasses of wine (hic)

watched the tennis, then i have been soooo busy with autocad survey work....i am sick of looking at the computer screen and figures arrrgghh!

evening again - tho its late as ever.

your neighbours sound good, specially if they were doing the cooking. and i too enjoy chilli, curry, lasagne, moussakka - you name it, i'll eat it

but a day at the comp with cad - rather you than me, i stay away from them wherever possible. has been a cold day here tho, and cutting up old tree stumps - what fun!

after a hectic weekend the house looks rather more habitable - some kind of order has returned after much work - another week or two and all will be well again. and the car itself is at work, will take doors and wings off for a bit of welding then get on with floor etc - will be smart

and did mean to say hi last night but spent the night with ds on the ps2

have fun with cad and tiling - am hungry now at the thought of food!

Hi James oooh sounds a bit bondish.

Sorry Im in silly mood tonight.

If you like chilli ,this is a fab recipewww.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chilliconcarne_67875.shtml

Just been organising some work exerience for DS2 today at a local nursing home. He needs to do a minimum of 2 weeks experience as he has now decided that he definitely doesnt want to be a vet.Bit cross really as i forked out quite alot of pennies for a vetlink course last year,but i guess its better than finding out when you have finished your degree.

DS2 played badminton comp tonight whilst i cooked
County badders is loomimg up at the weeking ,cant wait....except its a 3 hour journey to Middlesborough.

I love good food too a good hot curry (jal frezi) and hot chilli. The meal on sat was nice but a bit on the tame side for those with a weaker constitution and i love aubergines and any greek food.

I have an update ...

We're together, after all my indecisiveness, I asked for his number & it went from there