Winter is here

This year has been the first year that it has snowed this heavy this early since 1982 in England and it has bought chaos with it, as always I had my trustee camera ready to take pictures.

I love the snow, I love the way it seems to bring out the children in all of us.

Sophie

On the 27th of November 2010 at 10am Our beloved Sophie died.
we first got Sophie in 2000 and she was just 4 weeks old. The first memory of her was when I had a leather coat and she crawled up my chest and fell asleep in the back of my collar on my leather coat. she was so small that i could hold her in the palm of my hand and when she sneezed she would fall over.

Sophie has actually travelled quite far for a cat, she has been to northern island and London and back to Sheffield again. I moved in with my mother and her and For many years Sophie Was a happy cat, she had a little toy kitten that she would carry in her mouth and meow at it, and she would take it every where in the house that she went and she would sleep with her little toy kitten. she had been done so she could not have kittens of her own but she always had that mother instinct.

She was never the kind of cat to really sit on any one's knee or to be fussed over. but when we got Melissa and Polly she became a mother to them, she would pin them down and clean them or if they were been naughty she would give them a clip.

about 4 months ago Sophie began to lose weight and didn't seem so playful, but she still loved her crab sticks that we would get for her every once in a while, and her eating didn't seem any different.

She seemed to separate her self a little from the rest of the cats over the last few weeks, she just didn't want to play and was doing a lot of sleeping.

On the morning of November 27th I was woken up by Mother shouting Sophie. I thought that Sophie had gotten out of the house, but how wrong I was, I came down stairs to find my mother holding Sophie and crying. Sophie had died at my mothers feet at the bottom of the stairs, my mother had picked her up and was begging her to wake up.

I buried Sophie in the back garden where me and my mother can look out and see her every day.

We love you
and will miss you Sophie.

Sophie Apr 2000 -Nov 2010.

Internet problems

I got back to England on the 15th of November, it was around 10am and the weather was actually quite sunny but the air was crisp and cold and there was even some frost on the ground if I remember correctly, I made it back to the house at about 2:40 pm .

I was so tired from the journey but I tried to stay awake as late as possible, now When I got my new computer in the USA I had wireless access so That was great but here in England the wireless not as big of a thing so you really have to go to the city to find it around here. but I have a dongle for my internet and I thought that I would be able to just plug in and go, that's all I did on my old computer and it installed it's self and everything, All I had to do was press connect.

I installed it on my new computer as normal but when the start up window came up it had no signal and no network and wouldn't let me connect, I must have tried to uninstall and re install it about ten times before I called the customer support, I explaind to them what was happening. The man who I talked to took me through a range of problems and we tried a few different settings and after about 5 minutes of nothing working the man said "I'm sorry, you must return your computer it has a fault and that's why you can't connect".

What was I going to do return it by post, it would cost a fair bit I bet, I didn't give up there though, I kept trying to figure out if I could find a way to connect, i had my old computer that still worked fine and I used that to look up different ways that people had made it work, but I needed it to be connected to the internet so they were no good, I finally went round to my sisters, she had wirless and I got it to work up there. Back at my house it was still no joy, I decided I would give the company one last try. I called them up and a woman helped me this time, and within about 5 minutes she had figured out the problem and got me up and running.

Good job I didn't listen to the first guy I talked too. so now my computer works fine, I still use my old computer but it is almost dead now and while it still does what I need it to, perhaps it is coming to the time that I should decommission it. I will decide on a date soon enough I guess but I still need to transfer a lot of files from it so, i wont retire it until at least the end of this month and possibly beyond.

My trip to see my Jenn

Today was mine and Jenn's last full day together and we made the most of every minute.
We both decided that we would go to a petting zoo just outside of Dahlonega, and when we got there it was so wonderful, they had pigs and sheep and lamas, they had pony's and cows and you could feed and pet all of them.

When we went through the main gate we were given a cup of food for the animals and we followed the trail around the small farm. Jennifer and I loved to feed the animals
but it was very hard to feed just one of the animals in a pen because as soon as the others saw that we had some food the rest came running and one of the goats even nibbled at my legs.


There was a chicken that was clucking away to its self that made me laugh, and there was two turkeys walking around and some other bird that never shut up but the trip was so amazing and me and my Jenn have both agreed to go back again soon.

We got back to dahlonega after getting lost and some how turning up right where we was meant to be and neither of us knew how we had made it there because we went the complete wrong way.

We were both feeling very hungry and we stopped at the Chinese and ate as much as we could. My Jenn also bought me my Christmas gift, I always wanted a electric razor, My beautiful Jenn bought me one and I love it, I will never use a normal razor again. Thank you my beautiful Jenn, I love you so much.


we went to Jenn's dorm and we watched the movie grownups while I did my laundry.
and now I am beginning to pack my bags and getting ready to go back to England tomorrow, I really don't want to go and it always makes me sad having to go back but I will be coming back again in February to be with my beautiful Jenn again. but for now I am going to hold tight to these hours that I have with my beautiful Jenn. every minute of every day is so precious and I don't want to miss a second. Never let seconds spent with the one you love slip away. make every one of them count.

My trip to see my Jenn

what a great day we had.

Yesterday while Jenn was in her class, I decided I would go for a jog.
I jogged my normal route and then I decided to jog a little more, even though I felt kind of tired I felt it was time to push my self that little bit more. Where my Jog usually finishes is at the bottom of a hill. I decided it was time to see how far I could make it up the hill, I could feel my legs burning and I was gasping for breath , I looked up and I could see the top of the hill.

I said to my self "Cmon Wayne you can do it," I got to the top of the hill and decided to keep going, I jogged and jogged and jogged further that I ever thought I could . I ended up back where I started again, I had been jogging for 45 minutes and I don't know how many miles but when I stopped I felt so proud of my self. I couldn't stop smiling even though my legs felt like lead and my hands were tingling. I got a cup of water from Dairy queen and I walked back to Jenn's collage and met her from class. we decided that we would have a night watching a movie at Jenn's dorm with some pizza. we watched every things fine with Robert de nero and drew Barrymore.

Jenn made me some sloppy Joe's which I love, its kind of like chili con Carny but without the spicy part.

I never knew that cocacola was invented here in Georgia and it started out as a medicine, who would think it, me and Jenn plan to go to the cocacola factory one day soon.

My trip to see my Jenn

Me and Jenn are enjoying our time together every day, we do all the things that we love and spend as much time as possible together, Yesterday we both made our selves feel sick, we started off the day as usual, Jenn went to class and I waited for her in Bojangles and when Jenn was finished with class we went to pizza hut.

We had a large pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni on one half and sausage on the other.
After that we went to Jenn's apartment and spent some watching a little tv while we decided what to do.
We decided we would go watch the movie called Morning glory, a very funny movie, but it wasn't showing till 5pm so we went to the North Georgia shopping outlet.

When we got there it was only 2:30 pm so we had time to kill, we went through a few of the shops and looked at the products they had to sell. I can understand that a shop needs to make profit, that's what retail and sales is all about, making money. One store me and Jenn went in sold bags and clothing, but I could not believe the prices. Jenn showed me one bag and the price was $1'395'95. I nearly dropped through the floor, the hats were over $200 dollars in fact I didn't see a single item under $1oo dollars in this particular store. not even the wallets.

and what really got me is that the assistants came up and said " If ya'll buy anything in the store today you get 20% off". it wouldn't surprise me if you needed a credit reference to use the restrooms.

Anyway we had a huge pretzel to share and a drink of diet coke then we went to the movies and watched morning glory. we had a white cherry icy which was free to refill and popcorn with extra butter on it, while we watched the movie we got a refill 5 times on the icy and by the third time even the clerk was starting to say to look at me a bit odd, but they taste sooo good. after the movie we went to the Waffle house together and I had a special which was egg and toast with hash browns and bacon and a waffle and Jennifer had sausage and biscuits with white gravy.

We got back to Jenn's apartment and started to watch family guy, and that's when we both started to feel sick, we had eaten to much of the greasy stuff I think, we managed to hold it down thankfully.

we both agreed not to eat at the waffle house so late in the evening again.

My trip to see my Jenn

First of all I am sorry to those of you who read my blog, I haven't been writing every day about what me and my Jenn have been doing but with good reason.

My old laptop has become very I'll, when I switch it on the fan is so loud that it sounds like a helicopter taking off and the screen is now half fuzzy. I had a peace of paper wedged in to the side of the screen to stop that from happening but now even that doesn't help. My feeling is that the laptop is very close to the end now, but I have had it since early 2007 so in terms of computers I would say it has lasted very well and served its purpose.
If it wasn't for that computer me and my beautiful Jenn would have never met, or would we?

And now for the good news, my beautiful Jenn persuaded me to buy a new laptop, a Compaq with windows 7 and a very nice 250 gig hard drive of memory for all my pictures games and letters and it is sooo quiet, I can't even hear it when I turn it on or off and while the screen isn't as tall its more wide and it has all the features my previous on had. at first I was hesitating to get one but after a good think about it and Jenn telling me that the old one was so loud it could wake up the dead, I decided to get it, and I guess that another thing is that if it had broken all together while I was in England it would be more expensive and mean that I would have to wait another month to see my Jenn again. Oh yeah that brings me to my other good news. I am planing to be with my Jenn again in February and if all goes to plan I will be with her for valentines day.


So what el's have we been doing, well we have been to see two movies the first one was called Due date and was very funny. I have decided that Robert Downie JR has now made it in to my top ten list of all time male actors.

and the second was Mega Mind, a animated movie which was just as funny and a great film for the whole family.

We have been dining at all of our favorite restaurants and have been enjoying the time we have together, and even did some coloring until the food arrived




so that is a quick recap of some of the things we have been up to, I love been here with my Jenn and every second is a blessing.

My tirp to see Jenn day three

Today was very interesting day for me, while Jenn was busy teaching at her school, I was busy learning in Dawsonville.

I decided I would take a walk around , eventually came the Dawsonville city hall, and just inside there was a museum of the Nascar racing history. The man who was in there told me the story of how Nascar started with Just two men who decided to find out who had the fastest car and how they got a bulldozer to carve a race track in the dirt. He told me about how Nascar evolved.

He even told me about one man who had won the Nascar and then went home and the day after was killed. it was really interesting.

After I went to a small cafe, I needed the bathroom and rather than just go in and use the bathroom, I bought a drink of Coke and asked if it would be ok for me to sit for a while.
After a few minutes a man walked up to me and introduced him self, his name was James and he asked me how my day was going and we talked for a short while. He asked I was hungry and I said I was ok, but then I asked me if I would like a biscuit , I said ok and he told me then that he was the owner of the cafe and he brought me a sausage and bacon biscuit on the house. he and the staff were so very nice and the biscuit is one of the best I have tasted so far. so if any of you who read this are in the Dawsonville area and you feel hungry and want some great biscuits then you should definitely stop at the Jumpin for Jesus Cafe.

When Jennifer finished at her school, we both headed to the Kani house another great restaurant.
We had egg fried rice and Chicken. it was so yummi.

in the afternoon Jenn went to her second class and I went for a jog, it had only been about 3 hours since the meal and it was still laying heavy on my stomach and it made the jog a lot harder but I still made it and was back in time for my Jenn coming out of class.

We had a pizza in the evening and watched some tv together. it was yet another great day together and I cant wait for tomorrow.


Thank you for reading

My tirp to see Jenn day two

Here is what me and my beautiful Jenn did on our second day.

First it was Jennifer's birthday today 1st of November.

My Jenn had to go to school first thing where she is helping to teach a class of children so while she did that I went for a early morning jog and then when she was finished I took Jennifer to the restaurant of her choice and she had what ever she wanted of the menu.

Jenn selected a Irish traditional pub in the square in Dahlonega, and we decided that we would share some potatoes with cheese inside , and for the main course we had fish and chips.

Now with me been from England chips there and chips in America are two different things.
Chips in England are fries in America and American chips are what us English folk call crisps.
When the lady asked us if we would prefer Potato chips or fries, I said " Oh we will have Chips please". Thinking that she would come out with English chips, I mean it was a Irish pub which is right next door to England, surly it was the same thing, but Noooooo!!.

She comes out with a truly beautiful peace of fish but wait a minute whats going on here, she brought out crisps. Oh well we still eat it anyways. but Lesson learnt, England chips, America Fries!!!.

We took a walk around the area and looked in a few windows but most places were closed by now. I also did my good deed for the day, a man and a child were trying to get in to the trunk of their car. The man had locked his keys in his trunk and the small child was able to fit in by pulling forward the rear seats and crawling through in to the trunk, but there was a problem, he couldn't see anything because it was pitch black in the trunk. I heard the man asking if any one had a flash light. I borrowed him my phone which had a flash light for the camera built in. it only took a few minutes after that to get his keys, the man thanked me and the child and went on his way.


We also eat at Chick fil A and I must say that I have never seen FRIES like they have there, they are in a grid pattern, I had a chicken burger with cheese and Jennifer had chicken nuggets.


later that night Jenn showed me all the cards that she had received from the children, they were all so cute and fun to read, I told Jennifer that it was proof enough that she was a good teacher because all the kids love her.

We ended the night watching Sex and the city 2 with some cake and soda. a perfect day.
I love you Jenn

My tirp to see Jenn day one

The Journey.

First the good news, Me and Jenn are safe and happy that we are back together again.


So on with the story.

As you all know from reading my posts, the Journey really begins when I get back and begin work to get back to the point where I am now, which is with my Jenn and writing this, but this is about the actual traveling from England to the USA. so here goes


Well first thing, about a day before I was due to set off, it was my last day at work and I gave my mother a quick call to make sure she was ok and when I got through she sounded all in a panic. I asked her what was wrong and she said something about a terror attack on a plane. I told her not to worry , later I looked on the news and it was a cargo plane.

I told her that I was going on a passenger plane and that everything should be ok, but I must admit that it did scare me, but I didn't tell my mother that because if I did it would only make her worse.

I had a lot to do that night, I had to pack all of my things and get my tickets ready and pick out what I was going to wear for the trip, I always like to wear stuff with lots of pockets for the journey, I have different pockets assigned for different things. One pocket will be for my pass port and travel documents, another will be for money and my camera and so on.
It took me until 3am to finish packing and after that I watched some TV.

I wanted to stay up as late as possible so it wouldn't feel so bad at the airport staying there all night which I had to do because on Sundays they perform track maintenance so the earliest train after that is to late for my plane.

So next day the day of the journey, I got up around 3pm and tool a looooonnnnggg hot bath, and after rinsed off with a long hot shower it was so nice. I got dressed got my bags put my things in my pockets and away I go.

I got to the train station and waited for my train, now usually I catch a earlier train because it went straight through to the airport but this time I caught the later train and I had to change over in Manchester, and with it been nearly Halloween there were all kinds of strange things around. Zombies witches, ghosts, I think I even saw Elvis leaving the building.




I got to the airport and I had only got to wait 6 hours to wait until the gate opened up and I could go through. but wait there is more to this one, because it was the 31st of October the clocks went back at 2am, something I hadn't really thought about, so 7 hours was really 8 hours. I didn't mind to much though, I had my packed lunch maid buy my mother so I was all good.

at around six am I noticed that the gate was just about to open, I thought this was a bit odd, it said that it didn't open till 7 am. but people where queuing up and the lights were on, I thought I had better ask some one about this, I grabbed my things and went to a lady who worked at the airport and asked her if they were opening the gate.

She said. "Because the time had not changed in the USA the gate was opening as if it was still 7am" I though to my self imagine all those people who have put there clocks back and are gonna show up here at 7 for the flights and not make it because they are in effect a hour late for their check in. but I'm sure the airline would tell them right? but it didn't say anything on my documents.


I got through the check in and went to my gate and waited for a while. While I was there a plane pulled in and suddenly it was surrounded but about 5 fire trucks with flashing lights, but the fire crews got out of their trucks stood a little while and then got back in their trucks and left..Strange.


Now as a man, their are certain things I could say that I am not to keen on, like I wouldn't wear women's clothing or make up or I wouldn't wear the colour pink, I guess it's mainly because I associate pink with girls and blue with boys, don't get me wrong I think pink looks great on a girl but I would not look so good in it.

So there I am sat at the gate waiting for the plane to pull in and you will never guess what,,
It's only PINK!!!!! Yeah you read it right a PINK plane.. all the Lady's are all going AAWWWw look doesn't it look cute and all the men are looking and you can tell they are not impressed.


Well I say pink but the main body was actually white, the undercarriage and the tail and the engines were all pink though, and when I asked the steward why it was pink he told me it was painted especially to represent the breast cancer research foundation, so I guess that I could live with that reason, breast cancer is such a serious subject and Delta had raised so many millions towards the research and to celebrate their achievements had painted the plane pink and when it got up to the gate it had a logo on the side that said Breast cancer research foundation. but PINK!!!!! cmon!!!

When we all boarded I noticed a man who was sat just a few seats to the side of me, he was looking a little distressed as he was talking to the flight attendant, He was telling the flight attendant that he had a very serious allergy to peanuts to the point where if he was to come in to contact with them even if it was through the air conditioning system it would make his throat swell and choke him to death, and he was getting in to a panic because what the thing they serve you every hour on flights Peanuts, he said that it had happened before and even the scent of them can trigger it some how. The flight crew were trying to tell him that their are 200 or more people on the flight and they would do their best but they couldn't take the peanuts of every body's menu, next the mans girlfriend started crying, she was scared for her boyfriend and I think it that case most would be. the flight crew tried their best to help and even asked him if he would like to get off the plane if he felt that he was in danger, he said no and they finally managed to resolve the situation , by not serving anyone with peanuts three rows in front or behind the man, or at least I heard them say that. but they did give me a packet of peanuts, but with respect to the man's illness I did not open them and gave them back to the next flight attendant.

The flight went without any further hitches and was a nice flight, i watched a few movies and even managed to sleep for about two hours which is very unusual for me, but I had been awake for 27 hours.

I got to Atlanta and found my Beautiful Jenn waiting for me. I gave her a big kiss. we are so happy again.

Oh by the way it's Jennifer's birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY my beautiful Jenn I love you.