Hopkins the Bonk Legged

The day started off with Thomas trying his best take the “most awkward sod in the universe” award off Darth Vader. My promise of keeping a cool head for a week lasted the same length of time as a public service announcement.

The kids and Ali are snoring and grinding their little faces off leaving me to finish off today’s posting.

My initial suspicions of my ability to tie a bike rack to safely to a car were quashed when i passed Halfords in Cwmbran and asked them to check on the safety of my families bikes attachment.

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Well here we go,

Just one year after the events of last year (http://www.bonkleg.co.uk/national-lampoons-butlins-vacation-part1/) the Hopkins/Morris Tribe are venturing forth once again to Butlins.

The Hopkins/Morris tribe’s misfortunes/idiocies are become talked about far and wide to the point that Paddy Power, Betfred and Ladbrokes have given the following odds:

5/4 – Unsecured Bike Rack causes M5 pile up with Matthew Hopkins commenting on arrival after reading the news report at Butlins “where are the bikes? I tied the bikes up before we left, we were lucky to miss that traffic jam at Taunton”

2/1 Thomas Jack Hopkins, proving the prophesies right by realizing the true potential of his powers as the Antichrist enslaved the world in his realm as satanic majesty by making his favourite past time of head butting strangers up the arse in Merthyr Asdas a national sport.

Whatever the outcome, these times are the most precious, I’m going to record every day in butlins as my own personal record which you are most welcome to read.

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When I watched  trailers for Avatar, one blockbusters trailer caused me to shake and pass a droplet of wee in excitment.

I saw a trailer of a Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief,  not since Clash of the Titans where Harry Hamlin fought Morph’s ugly brothers has my Geeky childhood obsession of Greek Mythology made to the silver screen.

Being a bit of a bookworm I have to make sure I read the book before the film comes out, I ordered Percy Jackson: Lighting Thief / Sea of Monsters / Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) from Amazon with the intention of boring my daughter. How wrong I was. One of the best things to do as a parent is reading a scary story to the kids (within reason).  The first page of the book is probably one of the most gripping first page of a book I have read.The rest of the story didn’t let us down. In my honest opinion it supercedes the Harry Potter Series in terms of storytelling and excitment, it links into the classical stories of greek mythology which authors have been trying to emulate for 3000 years.

I took my daughter and her friend to see the film and was dissapointed in the way that Hollywood can take a a cracking source and balls it up. I understand that alot of stuff has to be cut away but why cut away the the creepilyy atmospheric rise of the Titan which gave the book a backbone and left the story open for numerous sequels.

Ahh well, I shouldn’t be suprised really.

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I have recently met up with my former rugby coach Glyn Walters at his archive centre at Cave Studios on the Garden Festival Site Above Replay opposite the Premier Inn

Garden Festival Wales ‘92

He has an amazing collection of events from the Garden Festival Wales 92, as well as events such as concerts, sporting events and other miscellaneous event that happened in around Blaenau Gwent in the 80’s and 90’s. He has kept everything and is spending his well earned retirement converting everything to DVD disc format.

Did Glyn ever film your wedding, school or Christmas play, theatrical performance, anniversary, sporting events or choir. If he did its odds on he has it now on DVD.

The Garden Festival Wales has not escaped his attention and he has a copy of virtually every act and performance that took place at this amazing event together with the many of the performance at the 1990 Eisteddfodd at Brynbach Park.

Are you frustrated you can no longer watch your own family video recordings because your family VCR machine has been superceded by a new didgtal disc player? Glyn can soon put this right andit wont cost much either. He has done a fabulous job converting videos of my kids to DVD and he can do the same for you. Interested? Why not pop down to his studio which he shares with  the reploy people. The his studio is open Every Wednesday and Friday 10am – 4pm and 12pm to 6pm on Thursdays. If you cant make it give him a ring on 01495 301363 or email him on glynwalters@yahoo.co.uk.

I promise it will be worth the effort.

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After the Doc told me that I have to knock the rugby on the head due to the Bonk Leg (club foot). I decided I would get back into the martial arts. After searching for  self defence classes in South Wales particularly  Krav Maga classes,  I found the class I was looking for – Total Self Protection, a Krav Maga Class in Merthyr.  I have just finished my second  class and to be honest, it’s awesome, I signed up as soon  as I could.

The class starts with a warm up, which involves a cardio work to raise the body temperature followed by stretching. The worryingly down-to earth and laid back instructors then demonstrate the techniques which seem so effective they can be scary. Tonight finished off with 4 x 30 secs bag work which after it finished I was making noises like a broken accordion and had to breathe in through my arse in order to take up the oxygen deficit.

Apart from the obvious benefits from the personal safety perspective,  training as part of a group in a structured manner motivates further than training on your own plus you get the full body workout. I know its early days but I couldn’t recommend it more.

I am looking forward to the next session but I am dreading my kettlebell workout in the morning.

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Being made redundant, it is an obvious kick to the knackers.

It is easy to spiral into a rut getting up late, shouting at Jeremy Kyles band of trained mutants, taking two hours to read the Sun and treating a trip to town as some fantastic voyage that will take a marathon like effort that can only be attempted after Loose Women has finished.

Checking your Facebook profile every 37 minutes, making sure that the This Morning and GMTV competitions are promptly entered and that Holly Willoughby, Kate Garraway and Lorraine Kelly are looking scrumptious can sometimes be the height of productivity.

The key to getting out of the rut is positive thinking, actually more than that really, thinking about your thinking and stop thinking negative, growing up and putting things in perspective. In Buddhism its called mindfulness. Before you think yourself in to a state, think yourself out of it . Brilliant Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: How to Use CBT to Improve Your Mind and Your Life is one of the most important books I have read and I would urge anybody who doesn’t believe praying to Jesus, drinking, smoking or drugging your way out the problem is the long term solution to to read it.

So don’t get down when the shit hits the fan, think your way out and around it and get into Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

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A week long holiday in Butlins Minehead had been booked. The kids were more excited than a bucket of wasps.  The “sunshine, lollipops” advert had whipped the kids into such a frenzy it was like living in a musical, every sentence that came out of their mouths was sung decibels above the comfort zone, while simultaneously dancing as if  busting for a wee.

Team Hopkins Mobilised

Friday the 7th August 2009 eventually came around. The kids seemed like the were bouncing to my eye level (our plan about tranquilising the kids failed when Alison missed with both tranquilizer darts when they were eating their cereal, this left the cat with a spaced-out meow).

We packed the car up and off we went. At 1pm the kids were fast asleep, we turned off at junction 24, 29 miles away from Butlins. Thinking we would be greeted by Billy Bear at 2pm, in hindsight we had more chance of getting to Slutlins Resort on the Dark Side of the Moon by 2pm.

Team Hopkins Immobilised

Just as we turned off the ramp from Junction 24 my heart stopped. The car stalled, the steering went and warning lights came on. Simultaneously my missus kept the situation under control by repeating “oh  my god, oh my god, oh my god”.  As I know as much as about cars as goldfish know about the early works of S Club 7, I  wanted to park it up before the giggly pin fell out and decarbonated the foofoo valve.

Grahams Transport Cafe – Bridgwater

I turned into Grahams Transport Cafe in Bridgewater 29 miles away from Minehead. I phoned the AA at 13:18, I was assured that a driver would be with us by 14:30. Slightly miffed with the breakdown, I got the kids out of the car and Alison took them into the very friendly cafe. At 14:24 I gave the AA a little reminder that me and my young family were stuck in a strange place (the cafe had now shut), I gave them the post code and address again:

Taunton Road,
N. Petherton,
Bridgewater TA6 6PR

The Black Hole

It was at this point that unbeknownst to me, where I was situated in Britain’s second oldest  transport cafe   3/4 of a mile off one of the major motorways in the UK had slipped into a parallel world, and as my luck would have it the car park was also surrounded by a cloaking device which blinded “Britain’s Fourth Emergency Service” to my stranded family (also my boy had diarrhoea, the fun we had shooting bum gravy all  the side of the road as the toilets had shut, anyway, I digress.)

Mr Magoo who was my driver for the evening, couldn’t find us. Instead of telling the rest of the team swinging on tyres back at HQ that he couldn’t find us, so they could send out an able sighted driver, he went through another time portal to fix the A-Team van or Thunderbird 3 or the Millenium Falcon.

Is this the end?

Luckily enough due to what I can only imagine was an intervention by a Timelord, we became visible to the people of earth because after four and a three quarter hours waiting, a different AA man (who travelled 60 miles from Salisbury) managed to find us. He told us that the fan belt had worn away and needed a new part, which he didn’t have. To my joy he told me that he couldn’t tow me as I had only had roadside not, relay. Being caught firmly by the short and curlies I had no option but to upgrade the £61 to relay. It was crazy to think he could tow us. He had to phone for another driver haulage firm to to tow us. We were given a time of between 60 and 90 mins for the driver to pick us up but by they may as well said “He will pick you up between fartkeg and slurgup parsecs” it would of been closer to the truth. An hour after he left my faith in human kindness was restored. The owners of Grahams Transport Cafe came back at 20:00 with pasties, chocolate and coffee which they gave us for free. To say we were grateful would be an understatement. It was one of the nicest things anybody has done for us.

No It’s Not

After a few more increasingly angry phone calls to see where the tow truck was I was infromed that the M5 was shut both ways and the driver couldnt get to us. My sanity was creeping away when at 20:45 the driver of the pickup truck rocked up to the car park. I nearly kissed his oily, 19 stone, ass. He hooked up the car to the back, and off we went down the windy roads to Minehead.

I just looked out of the window thinking “why does this always happen to me” but the feeling soon changed to a feeling of pride, I was proud of my family.  They kept it together in one of the most stressful, disappointing days of their lives. They harldy whinged, moaned or argued and basically kept it together which admirable for an eight year old and a four year old excited to go on their holidays. However this feeling soon changed when me missus turned around in the cab of the tow truck and jumped, grabbed my arm and said “Math, that car behind us is right up our arse, is he nuts or what”. Holding back all my frustration, I calmly pointed out that the car that was “up our arse” was our car being towed. I thought she would of recognised it after we had been stuck in it for 11 hours, god bless her, nothing is ever boring.

We got there just in time to pick up our keys. We had a lift to the chalet. Once settled I sat down and savoured my bottle of wine while the kids went to sleep with weary smiles on their faces.

Find out in Part 2 how Clark W Griswald (me) and the rest of the tribe got up to in Bultins Minehead.

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Flashbacks of Newquay

One day my beloved partner said to me:

“How about a Sun holiday?”

My blood ran cold!

Unwanted memories of our last Sun Holiday in Newquay came creeping back like a bad kebab. I remember looking out of my freezing caravan window at the rain lashed beach Newquay Beach before closing the curtains, dramatically sighing/weeping and returning to bed fully clothed (including coat with hood up)  to cuddle up to my family who were all dressed (including coat with hood up) to share body heat so we could survive the night.

Team Hopkins are Mobilised

We were allocated to go to Dawlish in Devon, we had been there before. My tension eased, it wasn’t to last. It was decided that for our four day break in Dawlish the team slogan would be ” be prepared”. Unfortunately this was taken to the point whereby everything we owned was  crammed into the car, we had to decide on either leaving a child or a George Foreman grill behind. George Foreman grills are better behaved and don’t have tantrums, but alas, I was overruled.

The journey down went without any stress, which was due Tommy sleeping all the way. Alison’s fear of being in the car generally has subsided over the years, now she only thinks that every fourth lorry will hit us on the motorway.

We got ther the site was lovely, the sun was out, the caravan was 30ft from the clubhouse all was well with the world.

The Dancing Hopkins

The kids loved the Loopy Club,  Tommy and Josie danced their little bums off. The clubhouse wasn’t too bad, not like Newquay where it was like backstage at Jeremy Kyle. Josie became obsessed with the bingo and Tom was normally danced out by 8:30. I could go back to the caravan with him sleeping and enjoy a glass of wine in peace, while Josie and Alison watched the campiest entertainment since Millets had an open day.

Tommy’s Birthday

It was Tom’s birthday on the second day his little face lighted up to see his Scalextric, though one of the cars continually took the corner like Ayrton Senna at the slightest touch. (I took it back on the way home).

We took him to the beach, go karting and playing football and we ended up back at the Loopy Club (for a change) Thomas said “no” when the girl on stage asked him if he had “plenty of presents”  which I would of expected from him to be honest. Though he didnt look to happy when they sung Happy Birthday Thomas.

Paignton Zoo

As the weather changed to dampness we went to Paignton Zoo. I believe this is the best Zoo in the land, better than the overgrown Garden Centre that is Bristol Zoo. Tommy, performed, refusing to walk, he even said when I asked him to see the animals

“LIONS ARE RUBBISH, TIGERS ARE RUBBISH AND BEARS ARE RUBBISH, I WANT TO SEE ONE GIRAFFE AND GO TO THE PLAY AREA – NOW!!”

(There were no bears there).

After getting back the kids went on up to the Loopy Club (can you see a pattern forming here), while I searched for TWO HOURS for the caravan keys. When I phoned Alison, Tommy overheard that I was looking for the caravan keys and he said “Mam, I hidden the caravan keys”. I frogmarched him back to the caravan, after interrogation and bribery he shown me the keys hidden in his pillowcase. Bless Him.

Team Hopkins – Holiday Task Completed.

Things are always better when you don’t look forward to it, I was really pleasantly surprised.

After being out of the house twelve hours a day with work recently finishing a long season of rugby I always felt guilty for not spending enough time with the family. This holiday recharged my batteries and made me realise what is important. They wont be kids for much longer.

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I apologise for my lack of posting lately. I promise I will write every day for 20 mins.

As an avid rugby player I can’t help using rugby analogies in my day to day work and life in general.

Some players place so much importance on being  the Captain, making sure that people do exactly what they want, how they want it and when they want it that their own game goes downhill.

A good captain inspires firstly by doing their job to best of their ability,influencing other player with their skill and attitude at no point does a captain think “how will I inspire my players?”. They know they will play to the best of their ability inspire players by their attitude.

It reminds me of DISC training I did a couple of years ago.  People are made up of four characteristics with one more dominant than the other.If  for example a project had to be completed by a certain deadline the following characteristics would contribute to it in the following ways.

• Dominator – Doesn’t matter how the project is done as long as it done thier way.
• Influencer – Doesn’t matter how the project is done as long as it fun/enjoyable.
• Supportive – Doesn’t matter how its done as long everybody is ok
• Conscientious – Doesn’t matter how its done as long as its done exactly to the brief.

Have guess which one is the hardest to work with an causes the most problems to morale.

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Hi Folks,

Sorry, but I have neglected this Blog of late, fear not, I will give you at least a weekly update from here on in.

I promised my wonderful mam who will be going  through a rough time in the next few weeks that I will record what the kids say and do.

Here goes:

Josie’s Birthday

My little princess turned eight last Friday (though her birthday is normally a weeks celebration), I cant beleive she turned eight it only seems like yesterday( I’m holding back on other cliches such as “where does the time go” etc. ) Anyway Josie wanted to fore go the usual kids party (no screaming kids, snot and jelly),   to stay in a hotel in her favourite place in Wales – Cardiff Bay.  I booked the day off work and booked the Future Inn for the night. Josie had packed her vanity her uncle Johnny had bought her on the previous Sunday.

Friday came around, I picked Tommy up from school which he said he was very proud of me, (he built that up to more than it was to be honest, it was only a forty yard walk, he never says he is proud when I can fart the Welsh National Anthem). Josie came home at 12, wound up like a top. Off we went first stop, swimming in Cardiff Bay. It was nice,my beautiful girlfriend came up with corker. Tommy wears a life jacket with foam inserts,  He jumped in and momentarily sunk under the water only to pop back up half a second later, Alison, obviously concerned said to me :

“Matthew, Tommy just sunk, do you think his jacket is inside out?”

I attempted to explain that no matter which way round a foam insert is placed, I wont hold up a 2 and half stone nutcase. (sorry Al but it is good material).

We went on to the hotel, I had a few trepidations

1. The hotel may be shite
2. The hotel would be full of piss heads, down in Cardiff for a Jolly night of happy slapping

My fears were allayed, I stay in many hotels with work but that was the best I have stayed in for a long time. Clean, excellent service and most importantly cheap, £86 for all of us. If you are staying in Cardiff, I recommend Future Inn.

It nearly went tits up, at 7:30pm we walked across to the Red Dragon Centre only to find that the main thing the kids wanted to do, bowling, was fully booked. I Improvised, took the kids to the nearby cinema hoping to watch a kids film, I was only told “Marley and Me”  was available at 8:30. To be honest taking the kids to watch a dog die is:

• Something I could do for free
• Not something I want to take the kids to see.

Improvisation was the key so we drove off to  Bowling Complex in Nantgarw. We were told it was an hour wait, we went to McDonalds to kill a bit of time. We went back in and it was pandemonium, I felt sorry for the staff, the lanes wasn’t working, their computer system was out of the ark (gas powered computers) and everyone was moaning at the very patient staff.  The kids asked me every 3 nanoseconds when they were going to play. Though fair play, when we did play and the lane broke down, a bald bloke with a mic made up for it. He made a fuss over Josies birthday, it made her day, he gave her two cuddly for bowling with her eyes closed. Though it must be said that Josie was not happy with Tommy winning (though it was she offically stated it was a practice night, alternating between between pushing the ball down the frame and actual bowling, whereas Tommy capitalised on using the frame all the time).

In the morning,  after a cracking breakfast, we went to watch Monster Vs Aliens. Josie and Tom loved it until Thomas after drinking his third litre of apple juice wanted to relieve himself as all good men do, half way through the film.  I could only find a disabled toilet (I’m sure my bonk leg partly qualifies me to use such a facility). After doing his business he went to pull the flush, the problem was he thought the orange “distress” cord was the flush and when I shouted “NOOOO” he took this as a personal insult and the following exchange went as so:

Thomas: Dont Ever Shout at Mine, Im going home I am

Me: C’mon Tom , lets go and watch the film, its funny, you like the Blob?

Thomas: NOOO, the film is rubbish, you are rubbish, im going home!

Me: C’mon butty I’m sorry, finish the film and ill take you home in the car.

Thomas: Im off home on the Bus, on mine own!

Bear in mind he is only four (nearly), he made schoolboy error, though all he had in his pocket was a kinder egg toy and a hanky, he wouldnt have had made it to Caerphilly. Anyway, argument resolved he went back and sulked on his mams lap for 5 mins, he enjoyed the rest of the film. After the film we took two knackered kids home.

It was one of the best 24 hours of my life. I will always remember that day. In few years she will shudder at thought of spending time with her parents, (hopefully not but you gotta be prepared) I think it is important revel in the good days to get you through the bad.

Rugby Saturday

I played against Newport Whiteheads in a WRU Division 6 Match we won with a bonus point, I scored two tries and got man of the match. Even more important was the fact that I finished my first game all season, I was in alot of pain, but it was one of my proudest days ever playing rugby. The coaches have been excellent, more patient than I deserve sometimes and I was glad I could pay them back. (sorry about sounding corny but I love my rugby). Read the match report.

Work

This week was rollercoaster, there was issues to be resolved and I had a meeting with the board. It went brilliantly I now heading up my own department, Technical Marketing. in a leading online people search company I am immensly proud of this. Though it is a bit daunting thinking of budgets etc. Though I should point out that there is only me in the department, the team building day out of one should be interesting, I know would definitley win go karting, though playing paintballing with myself should be interesting. Anyway I digreess,  I know I will be supported by family and work and all I can do is my best.

Anyway enough of my self indulgence, see you next week.

Pictures

Get Down

Not fighting for once

Thomas Bowling

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