Danny woke me up at about five in the morning yesterday (so much for my second chance of a non-work lie-in) saying he was having stomach cramps. I could not offer any explanation as to why this child has suddenly become my responsibility. I thought about calling his parents but as they seem to have given little consideration to his health so far over the I thought they wouldn't be too impressed at such an early morning wake up (I knew I hadn't been) even for their own child, even if the poor bu66er hadn't been home since Saturday. So I blinked myself awake (or at least tried to) and sat down on the edge of the bed with him.
I asked how painful his stomach felt, and he sort of grimaced but said not too bad. Looking at him (and more importantly, his tummy) he seemed to have lost a whole layer of blubber from there. I asked him when was the last time he had eaten and he thought for a moment and then said he couldn't remember. So I told him he was probably feeling ravenous but as his stomach would still probably feel sore from hitching up yesterday the hunger pangs were being mis-translated as hunger pains. I advised him to go downstairs and have a slight of toast and some milk. Danny's face displayed that perhaps he wasn't too enamoured with this idea, but I slapped him gently on the back and said C'mon, which served evidently to persuade him. I resisted the urge to slap his butt once he'd gotten up as I might with my own kids.
Once I was back in bed I got to wondering: Is it just me, or it is everyone who feels that once they've had children, you automatically gain feelings of love and affinity with all kids? Okay, not *all* kids as some kids are just little offsprings of Beelzebub. I certainly had no considerations for children before I became a father. They were just a strange alien race of short people with seemingly boundless amounts of energy and noise who just generally got in the way and spoilt things for us adults. But then becoming a father (albeit initially reluctantly) changes all that. You make your goals but it gets you to realising: If there's one thing on this f*cked-up little planet worth living for, it's your kids. And children in general. Just a shame we've leaving this planet in such a mess for future generations.
Anyhow, I now had warm, cuddly feelings for Danny and felt guilty for dismissing him previously as a waste of space. If he wants to leave absolutely no mark on life before he dies, then who am I to argue? Once I die, I don't suppose the papers will be chocca of eulogies for yours truly, so how can I judge? Danny's not even a teenager yet - he may go on to utter greatness.
Despite much pointless pontificating, I managed to get a few more zeds in before being awoken from some loud shouts from downstairs. Seemed to be Gabriel who was doing the majority of the shouting. Resignedly I hoisted myself from my bed and pulled on a dressing gown.
The reason for Gabe's vociferous ire: Danny's sin in eating all the bread. The basis of Gabe's argument: That Danny shouldn't be eating any of *our* stuff as he doesn't live here. I pointed out that (a) Danny is a guest, (b) whilst he is a guest he to all intents and purposes does live here until he decides (or his mum and dad decide) otherwise, and as such he is entitled to anything that we ourselves are entitled to - within polite reason. Gabriel of course immediately began further protests, so I alerted him to the concept of getting his @ss to the local shop and buying some bread which obviously he hadn't considered as (a) it would involve the usage of some of his energy and (b) it would involve the usage of some of his own funds. Gabe told me that Danny should go - but then Lukas shouted that *he* would go and Danny would go with him. So that I believe, was that sorted.
Once the smaller boys were out of the way I told Gabe he needed to start thinking about what he was taking to Germany. This generated an instant frown from him. I asked (a bit needlessly) what the problem was and he said that he didn't want to go to Germany. So I said we've gone through this hundreds of times - I want this to happen for me. I want to go on holiday with all three of my sons and it'll be the last time very probably that such a thing will happen. Gabriel said Well, Andrew says he's not coming. I told him that Andrew *was* coming. Gabe told me that Andrew is insisting that he isn't. I told Gabe that I am insisting that he *was* coming, and so was he, and so was Lukas. Andrew was coming even if me and Colin had to man-handle him on to the plane.
Gabe asked if Danny was coming. I said of course not.
Andrew was in bed most of the morning, surfacing at eleven. He came down, ate some lunch, then disappeared. I didn't bring up Germany as I didn't want the argument. Yet.
Danny began to look better (and plumper) as the day wore on. I suggested after dinner that he go home tonight, but he looked so disappointed at this idea I relented and he slept over yet again. No call from his parents at all yesterday, so I guess they don't mind. At all.
Wednesday 8 April 2009
Tuesday 7 April 2009
Sickie Wickets
We have a sick child in the house, and he's not even mine.
Anyway, first things first - I'm on holiday! Yeah! Woke up this morning and wondered for a nanosecond why the alarm had not gone off, but one nanosecond later my brain kicked in and told me it had not gone off because I had not set it. And I had not set it because I was not off to work today. So I cuddled a pillow and thought about a Monday morning not sitting in my office chair, not deleting all the weekend emails and not spending an hour browsing all the internet sites I can't be bothered with at weekends. Non-work Mondays are of course, the best kind.
In a moment of delusional madness and in a desperate attempt at finding something to do, I suggested to Lukas (and Danny) that as the weather was nice (if not brilliant) we could go and watch some cricket. I really do not know how those words even got into my head, as cricket is usually a game I've incredibly little time for, but I really wanted to find something I could do with Lukas, and I know whilst I don't think he's ever sat through a game in his life he played it last year at school for the first time last summer and really enjoyed himself. He even got selected for the school second XI on two occasions (sadly both times during heavy periods at work so I didn't get to see him), scoring eleven on the first occasion and a sad duck on the second. This was in "real" statistics as they now with kids (apparently) use some weird scoring system where you start (I think) on one hundred and then either score or lose runs depending on how your team does (I didn't have a hope of comprehension as I never even mastered basic calculus at school). Whatever - Cricket became Lukas's obsession for about three weeks (until that duck) then it waned as the weather got wetter and colder (as it generally does in the UK around every single bloody month of the year).
So, as I said, in a moment of madness I flicked on the internet to see what (if any) cricketing options were available. Discovered that Leicestershire were playing Nottinghamshire in a pre-season friendly at their ground, so our attendance at that was what I suggested to Lukas. He looked at me strangely for a moment then nodded and said yeah, that might be okay. Then the question of Danny (who I noticed was looking very pale with dark eyes, but then as he never looks very healthy anyway I didn't - regretfully - put two and two together) came up. So I asked Danny if he would care to join us. He shrugged and gave a tiny nod, which I took meant affirmative.
So we waited until about eleven and drove down to Grace Road. As it was somewhere we'd never been before, I of course got lost, and it took us much longer to get there than it ought to have done. We ended up going needlessly through the centre of Loughborough, but eventually got on the right road and found somewhere to park.
It was when we joined the admittedly meagre queue to get in when the first mishap occurred. Another guy standing with us suddenly yelled Whoa, man overboard! No idea what he meant until I saw Danny. My brain became befuddled for a moment - I thought at first someone had tipped a can of coke over him, but then as a spew of dark brown liquid volcanoed from his mouth I guessed he's been sick. All liquid though. The daft lad made no effort to run and vomit somewhere a little more convenient though, he just vomited where he stood. Fortunately he was projectiling enough for the sick to miss his clothes. Once he was done he just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and acted as if nothing had happened. I asked if he was okay but he just said Yeah. I asked if he was still okay to attend the game, and again, he said Yeah. So in we went.
It was a mistake. Notts had amassed six thousand runs the previous day (this being a two-day game) and declared, leaving Leics to amassed a further six thousand runs before they got bored and called it a day. It was about as interesting as reading the precautions leaflet for a tube of superglue. We stuck it for two hours before Lukas suddenly announced Dad, this is f**king boring. I agreed and as Danny (just for a change) didn't say anything, I assumed we had his agreement as well. So we left.
And as we did so Mount Danny erupted for a second time. He'd stuck to water and diet coke during the game, and that was all that came out, and at least this time he made a half hearted attempt to get to a wall. After he hitched up a few times he smiled again at me with a ghostly face and dripping eyes. I nipped into a nearby Greggs and asked if I could have a paper bag. The lady at the counter shook her head, so I ended up buying a cheese-and-onion pastie just for the privilege of obtaining a makeshift vomit bag. I was very wary of driving Danny back but he insisted he felt better - of course once someone's sick in a car the car retains that sick smell eternally.
We drove back and Danny kept the sick monsters under wraps. I asked how he felt repeatedly but all he ever replied was Cold.
Got back and rang Danny's parents but got no reply. Around half seven Danny complained of feeling tired, so tried his folks again and again, no reply. Danny was asleep on the settee when I came back, so I carried him up to Lukas's room and slid him into bed. Finally got through to Danny's dad at half-nine and explained what had happened. Danny's dad asked if I wanted him to fetch his son but we decided between us to leave him be.
Tried Sarah twice last evening as well, but no reply.
Anyway, first things first - I'm on holiday! Yeah! Woke up this morning and wondered for a nanosecond why the alarm had not gone off, but one nanosecond later my brain kicked in and told me it had not gone off because I had not set it. And I had not set it because I was not off to work today. So I cuddled a pillow and thought about a Monday morning not sitting in my office chair, not deleting all the weekend emails and not spending an hour browsing all the internet sites I can't be bothered with at weekends. Non-work Mondays are of course, the best kind.
In a moment of delusional madness and in a desperate attempt at finding something to do, I suggested to Lukas (and Danny) that as the weather was nice (if not brilliant) we could go and watch some cricket. I really do not know how those words even got into my head, as cricket is usually a game I've incredibly little time for, but I really wanted to find something I could do with Lukas, and I know whilst I don't think he's ever sat through a game in his life he played it last year at school for the first time last summer and really enjoyed himself. He even got selected for the school second XI on two occasions (sadly both times during heavy periods at work so I didn't get to see him), scoring eleven on the first occasion and a sad duck on the second. This was in "real" statistics as they now with kids (apparently) use some weird scoring system where you start (I think) on one hundred and then either score or lose runs depending on how your team does (I didn't have a hope of comprehension as I never even mastered basic calculus at school). Whatever - Cricket became Lukas's obsession for about three weeks (until that duck) then it waned as the weather got wetter and colder (as it generally does in the UK around every single bloody month of the year).
So, as I said, in a moment of madness I flicked on the internet to see what (if any) cricketing options were available. Discovered that Leicestershire were playing Nottinghamshire in a pre-season friendly at their ground, so our attendance at that was what I suggested to Lukas. He looked at me strangely for a moment then nodded and said yeah, that might be okay. Then the question of Danny (who I noticed was looking very pale with dark eyes, but then as he never looks very healthy anyway I didn't - regretfully - put two and two together) came up. So I asked Danny if he would care to join us. He shrugged and gave a tiny nod, which I took meant affirmative.
So we waited until about eleven and drove down to Grace Road. As it was somewhere we'd never been before, I of course got lost, and it took us much longer to get there than it ought to have done. We ended up going needlessly through the centre of Loughborough, but eventually got on the right road and found somewhere to park.
It was when we joined the admittedly meagre queue to get in when the first mishap occurred. Another guy standing with us suddenly yelled Whoa, man overboard! No idea what he meant until I saw Danny. My brain became befuddled for a moment - I thought at first someone had tipped a can of coke over him, but then as a spew of dark brown liquid volcanoed from his mouth I guessed he's been sick. All liquid though. The daft lad made no effort to run and vomit somewhere a little more convenient though, he just vomited where he stood. Fortunately he was projectiling enough for the sick to miss his clothes. Once he was done he just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and acted as if nothing had happened. I asked if he was okay but he just said Yeah. I asked if he was still okay to attend the game, and again, he said Yeah. So in we went.
It was a mistake. Notts had amassed six thousand runs the previous day (this being a two-day game) and declared, leaving Leics to amassed a further six thousand runs before they got bored and called it a day. It was about as interesting as reading the precautions leaflet for a tube of superglue. We stuck it for two hours before Lukas suddenly announced Dad, this is f**king boring. I agreed and as Danny (just for a change) didn't say anything, I assumed we had his agreement as well. So we left.
And as we did so Mount Danny erupted for a second time. He'd stuck to water and diet coke during the game, and that was all that came out, and at least this time he made a half hearted attempt to get to a wall. After he hitched up a few times he smiled again at me with a ghostly face and dripping eyes. I nipped into a nearby Greggs and asked if I could have a paper bag. The lady at the counter shook her head, so I ended up buying a cheese-and-onion pastie just for the privilege of obtaining a makeshift vomit bag. I was very wary of driving Danny back but he insisted he felt better - of course once someone's sick in a car the car retains that sick smell eternally.
We drove back and Danny kept the sick monsters under wraps. I asked how he felt repeatedly but all he ever replied was Cold.
Got back and rang Danny's parents but got no reply. Around half seven Danny complained of feeling tired, so tried his folks again and again, no reply. Danny was asleep on the settee when I came back, so I carried him up to Lukas's room and slid him into bed. Finally got through to Danny's dad at half-nine and explained what had happened. Danny's dad asked if I wanted him to fetch his son but we decided between us to leave him be.
Tried Sarah twice last evening as well, but no reply.
Monday 6 April 2009
Zombie
Yesterday was such a waste. I didn't really know how I ought to deal with the terrible lack of sleep. I was absolutely wide awake at 7am, so I got up. You know that feeling, when your body knows it is exhausted yet puts on such a bravado of being energic, preternaturally alert and full of beans that it's actually painful? Then about an hour later you have such a crash you have to yell for someone armed with a spatula to come and scrape you up off the floor.
I showered off some of my fatigue, had a shave, soaked my chin in aftershave, cleaning my teeth so hard I spat half a pint of diluted blood into the sink, gargled on mouthwash, and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, wondering who the zombie looking back at me was.
Once dressed I walk to the village corner shop and armed myself with the Observor, two cans of Red Bull and a lottle of Lucazade (the best hangover cure known to man as long as you dissolve two headache tablets into it). The sunshine did nothing to lift my spirits, in fact it dampened them considerably. The Lord hath blessed the Sunday with a beautiful day and I am going to toss it aside by feeling crap and miserable for most of it. Damn you!
Came home to find Lukas and Danny (who had as usual stopped for a sleepover) wrestling with the George Foreman and making themselves a toasted bacon and cheese sandwich. I rue the day I instructed them in promoting the normal bacon sandwich into a more blissful design by clamping it into the hinged part of the grill. They are now addicted to them and we get through several packs of bacon a week; although I guess this puts Andrew out more than it puts me out. I asked if they were going to make me one but only got blank looks. Lukas told me he'd be willing to put the bacon on for me once they'd finished. Gee, thanks.
Danny was just wearing (I think) a pair of Gabe's old pyjama bottoms. It amazes me how a child can look scruffy in just one item of clothing, but Danny managed it. Noticed that Danny is starting to get that kind of belly Gabe started developing around the time he was Danny's age. The boy-boobs will surely follow. Perhaps I ought to have a word? But thanks to kick-boxing and puberty Gabe is looking considerably less chubby these days, so I guess I'll keep quiet and let nature and nuture both do whatever they decide to do.
Is it a good thing that someone else's child feels so at ease with us he thinks it fine to wander around the house virtually unclothed? Once whilst I was showering I heard someone come in to use the toilet. I finished my shower and pulled back the curtain to grab a towel to find a (then) nine-year-old Danny sitting calmly on the loo. He looked at me and without missing a beat gave me a little smile and wave, then continued the release of pooh-depth-charges into the bog. I hurriedly pulled back the shower curtain and made a considerably lengthy attempt of drying myself off; at least until I was sure that Danny had finished his business and was out of there.
Anyway, once armed with a self-made bacon toastie (the boys had selfishly used up all of the cheese) I settled down with The Observor and one of the cans of Red Bull and my Luzacade. Barely made it through the Review section before my eyelids began to droop. I became a little tearful at this stage (metaphorically at least) as all the signs now pointed to me having a really terrible day.
Andrew came down and went somewhere, then Gabe came down and went somewhere, and I barely registered either of them. Then Lukas and Danny came down (now both dressed) and shoved on the PS2 for further killing sprees.
I wondered what to do. I really felt like going to bed. I thought maybe I could nip back for a couple of hours. Could I trust myself to get up when the alarm sounded? Or would I just slam it off and then go straight back to sleep, awaken in a daze at 1am, my body-clock having gone into a magician's hankerchief who'd then pummelled it with a hammer.
Oh sleep, beautiful sleep. How I needed thee. How I knew I couldn't have thee.
I actually began to drift off but then the phone rang. Or at least I think it did as Lukas and Danny paid no attention to it. I prised myself off the sofa and answered it.
It was Sarah - probably the one person I ought not to be speaking to unless I was in full possession of my cognitive abilities. She asked how I was and I decided to be honest and tell her I felt terrible. Sadly, this got brushed aside as Sarah went on to blabber about how she was sorry she was in how she spoke to me when I phoned her on Friday but she was having problems with Ruth not wanting to go to her ex-husbands (Sarah's ex-husbands, not Ruths) and her ex-husband (whose name completely escaped me at the point of the call) was creating a stink especially as Ruth had told him about me and he's been firing all sorts of questions at Sarah and ... and ... and ...
Sadly, my brain could not keep up and my attention fell down a deep, dark hole. I was barely conscious by the time Sarah had ceased rabbitting on and I hadn't taken in the last three minutes of the conversation. So I fired off something non-committal (I think it was 'I bet things'll look not so bad after a nights sleep' - which judging my Sarah's reaction was enough to get away with my lack of attention). I asked if I could call her back tomorrow evening, when my neurons might actually be firing. She said okay.
I crawled through the dead hours somehow until half-seven, then crawled upstairs into bed.
And I slept like a baby. A dead one.
I showered off some of my fatigue, had a shave, soaked my chin in aftershave, cleaning my teeth so hard I spat half a pint of diluted blood into the sink, gargled on mouthwash, and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, wondering who the zombie looking back at me was.
Once dressed I walk to the village corner shop and armed myself with the Observor, two cans of Red Bull and a lottle of Lucazade (the best hangover cure known to man as long as you dissolve two headache tablets into it). The sunshine did nothing to lift my spirits, in fact it dampened them considerably. The Lord hath blessed the Sunday with a beautiful day and I am going to toss it aside by feeling crap and miserable for most of it. Damn you!
Came home to find Lukas and Danny (who had as usual stopped for a sleepover) wrestling with the George Foreman and making themselves a toasted bacon and cheese sandwich. I rue the day I instructed them in promoting the normal bacon sandwich into a more blissful design by clamping it into the hinged part of the grill. They are now addicted to them and we get through several packs of bacon a week; although I guess this puts Andrew out more than it puts me out. I asked if they were going to make me one but only got blank looks. Lukas told me he'd be willing to put the bacon on for me once they'd finished. Gee, thanks.
Danny was just wearing (I think) a pair of Gabe's old pyjama bottoms. It amazes me how a child can look scruffy in just one item of clothing, but Danny managed it. Noticed that Danny is starting to get that kind of belly Gabe started developing around the time he was Danny's age. The boy-boobs will surely follow. Perhaps I ought to have a word? But thanks to kick-boxing and puberty Gabe is looking considerably less chubby these days, so I guess I'll keep quiet and let nature and nuture both do whatever they decide to do.
Is it a good thing that someone else's child feels so at ease with us he thinks it fine to wander around the house virtually unclothed? Once whilst I was showering I heard someone come in to use the toilet. I finished my shower and pulled back the curtain to grab a towel to find a (then) nine-year-old Danny sitting calmly on the loo. He looked at me and without missing a beat gave me a little smile and wave, then continued the release of pooh-depth-charges into the bog. I hurriedly pulled back the shower curtain and made a considerably lengthy attempt of drying myself off; at least until I was sure that Danny had finished his business and was out of there.
Anyway, once armed with a self-made bacon toastie (the boys had selfishly used up all of the cheese) I settled down with The Observor and one of the cans of Red Bull and my Luzacade. Barely made it through the Review section before my eyelids began to droop. I became a little tearful at this stage (metaphorically at least) as all the signs now pointed to me having a really terrible day.
Andrew came down and went somewhere, then Gabe came down and went somewhere, and I barely registered either of them. Then Lukas and Danny came down (now both dressed) and shoved on the PS2 for further killing sprees.
I wondered what to do. I really felt like going to bed. I thought maybe I could nip back for a couple of hours. Could I trust myself to get up when the alarm sounded? Or would I just slam it off and then go straight back to sleep, awaken in a daze at 1am, my body-clock having gone into a magician's hankerchief who'd then pummelled it with a hammer.
Oh sleep, beautiful sleep. How I needed thee. How I knew I couldn't have thee.
I actually began to drift off but then the phone rang. Or at least I think it did as Lukas and Danny paid no attention to it. I prised myself off the sofa and answered it.
It was Sarah - probably the one person I ought not to be speaking to unless I was in full possession of my cognitive abilities. She asked how I was and I decided to be honest and tell her I felt terrible. Sadly, this got brushed aside as Sarah went on to blabber about how she was sorry she was in how she spoke to me when I phoned her on Friday but she was having problems with Ruth not wanting to go to her ex-husbands (Sarah's ex-husbands, not Ruths) and her ex-husband (whose name completely escaped me at the point of the call) was creating a stink especially as Ruth had told him about me and he's been firing all sorts of questions at Sarah and ... and ... and ...
Sadly, my brain could not keep up and my attention fell down a deep, dark hole. I was barely conscious by the time Sarah had ceased rabbitting on and I hadn't taken in the last three minutes of the conversation. So I fired off something non-committal (I think it was 'I bet things'll look not so bad after a nights sleep' - which judging my Sarah's reaction was enough to get away with my lack of attention). I asked if I could call her back tomorrow evening, when my neurons might actually be firing. She said okay.
I crawled through the dead hours somehow until half-seven, then crawled upstairs into bed.
And I slept like a baby. A dead one.
Sunday 5 April 2009
Insomnia Part 73
I don't know whether I can blame *holiday-mood* for this, but last night was one of the worse night's sleeps (or lack of sleeps) I've ever experienced. I tried and I tried and I tried to drift off, but nothing seemed to do the trick. I hate it when my mind does this to me. What does it achieve? I can't really put into words how totally dreadful and drained I feel at the moment. Every physical action is a struggle, yet I know if I succumb to the nap my body truly desires and probably needs my body clocked will go completely kaput and I'll be right back to another night of watching the orange numerals on the clock-radio tick slowly by.
I thought I'd managed to kick this insomnia business as it hasn't troubled me for such a time. I've really rediscovered the knack of sleeping; I think the fact I have wrestled with my minimal drink problem and thrown it off is the reason for this. Each night I've barely slipped under the covers before my brain succumbs to the beautiful darkness of a little death practise. Plus there's the fact my life seems to have simplified over the past couple of months. The last time I faced a sustained period of sleep-ills was during that dreadful Andrew/Kevin business. Now everything in most departments seems settled I can succumb to Mr Sandman without concern.
I woke up Saturday morning and instead of yanking myself from beneath my duvet as I normally do I allowed myself a cosy half an hour of a luxurious semi-snooze. I let my mind drift to whatever region of space it felt a need to drift to and it hitch-hiked its way down to Southampton. Lord - it was so nice waking up with someone else in a bed last weekend. It would not have even mattered if we'd not gone on to have $ex, or had had $ex the previous evening. Just the presence of another human being of adult age in the bed was indescribably lovely and I don't think I appreciated it in all its splendiferousness at the time (a curious habit of mine). I know I shouldn't think this but it brought back such rigid memories of Poppy. Usually like me she was an up-and-at-em type of gal but on the odd Sunday (of course before Andrew and Gabriel and Lukas and The Grim Repear came along) when it came to bed you could hardly get us out of the thing. Poppy was the only person in my entire history who I shared a bed with as half of a couple.
Eventually I got up and brewed myself a coffee and put on some toast. But then I though to merry hell with it and took coffee and toast and the digital radio upstairs and went back to bed. For chuff's sake, I'm on holiday aren't I? I tuned into to Adam & Joe on 6Music and listened to two forty-year-old blokes pretend to be teenagers.
By midday I began to feel really guilty and felt I was in danger of letting the day slip completely away from me, so I showered and dressed, maintaining the holiday motif by wearing shorts, and tripped downstairs.
Lukas was the only one of my sons present, although my weekend pseudo-son, Danny, had already found his way to Chez BrynT and the pair were blowing each other's heads off on Call of Duty. Lukas actually noticed I'd gotten up and told me he was getting worried as he thought I might be ill. I said I just fancied a bit of a lie-in. Lukas didn't answer as he was swearing at Danny who'd just dropped a grenade on his a$$.
I asked Lukas if he felt like doing anything today; my son then looked at me as though I was a some crazy dude. He said, like what? So I said, dunno, perhaps we could go to the pictures and get some father-son time in. Lukas said what about Danny, so I said okay some father-son-and-special guest time (although that qualifies as a bit of a bind - it's not that I don't like Danny; he's just one of those vacant, scruffy, lollopping kids who's never going to leave a mark on life (or even a smudge)). Lukas said I could have had some father-son time on Thursday if I'd taken his to basketball. This was unfair, and I told Lukas so. He sort of reddened and started to look a little guilty, so I hoped he thought it a bit unfair as well.
In the end we didn't go to the pictures, but we watched a couple of films that I'd managed to (...ahem...) purloin whilst munching on crisps and popcorn and drinking whiskey (me) and shandies (Lukas and Danny). The first film was Yes Man which was not as half bad as I thought it would be as it contained that caveat "Warning: Many Scenes Will Contain Jim Carrey" but aside from the odd Carrey-gurn he contained himself and some of the dialogue was extremely well done. I'd read the book (and spotted the author, Danny Wallace, as an extra at a bar in one scene) and it there was about 5% of the book in the film.
Second film was the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" starring a wooden Keanu Reeves playing a wooden alien made of wood (I've made that last bit up). The plot of this film is thus:
Keanu: Humans are scum. You are killing The Earth. We are going to wipe you from this planet.
Woman: But I love my son (even though he's no blood relation to me) !
John Cleese: Here I am in a cameo playing someone very clever. Listen to some Bach.
Keanu: I was wrong! I must save you!!
Then it was back to bed. And my body made me pay for my laziness this morning. Big Time.
I thought I'd managed to kick this insomnia business as it hasn't troubled me for such a time. I've really rediscovered the knack of sleeping; I think the fact I have wrestled with my minimal drink problem and thrown it off is the reason for this. Each night I've barely slipped under the covers before my brain succumbs to the beautiful darkness of a little death practise. Plus there's the fact my life seems to have simplified over the past couple of months. The last time I faced a sustained period of sleep-ills was during that dreadful Andrew/Kevin business. Now everything in most departments seems settled I can succumb to Mr Sandman without concern.
I woke up Saturday morning and instead of yanking myself from beneath my duvet as I normally do I allowed myself a cosy half an hour of a luxurious semi-snooze. I let my mind drift to whatever region of space it felt a need to drift to and it hitch-hiked its way down to Southampton. Lord - it was so nice waking up with someone else in a bed last weekend. It would not have even mattered if we'd not gone on to have $ex, or had had $ex the previous evening. Just the presence of another human being of adult age in the bed was indescribably lovely and I don't think I appreciated it in all its splendiferousness at the time (a curious habit of mine). I know I shouldn't think this but it brought back such rigid memories of Poppy. Usually like me she was an up-and-at-em type of gal but on the odd Sunday (of course before Andrew and Gabriel and Lukas and The Grim Repear came along) when it came to bed you could hardly get us out of the thing. Poppy was the only person in my entire history who I shared a bed with as half of a couple.
Eventually I got up and brewed myself a coffee and put on some toast. But then I though to merry hell with it and took coffee and toast and the digital radio upstairs and went back to bed. For chuff's sake, I'm on holiday aren't I? I tuned into to Adam & Joe on 6Music and listened to two forty-year-old blokes pretend to be teenagers.
By midday I began to feel really guilty and felt I was in danger of letting the day slip completely away from me, so I showered and dressed, maintaining the holiday motif by wearing shorts, and tripped downstairs.
Lukas was the only one of my sons present, although my weekend pseudo-son, Danny, had already found his way to Chez BrynT and the pair were blowing each other's heads off on Call of Duty. Lukas actually noticed I'd gotten up and told me he was getting worried as he thought I might be ill. I said I just fancied a bit of a lie-in. Lukas didn't answer as he was swearing at Danny who'd just dropped a grenade on his a$$.
I asked Lukas if he felt like doing anything today; my son then looked at me as though I was a some crazy dude. He said, like what? So I said, dunno, perhaps we could go to the pictures and get some father-son time in. Lukas said what about Danny, so I said okay some father-son-and-special guest time (although that qualifies as a bit of a bind - it's not that I don't like Danny; he's just one of those vacant, scruffy, lollopping kids who's never going to leave a mark on life (or even a smudge)). Lukas said I could have had some father-son time on Thursday if I'd taken his to basketball. This was unfair, and I told Lukas so. He sort of reddened and started to look a little guilty, so I hoped he thought it a bit unfair as well.
In the end we didn't go to the pictures, but we watched a couple of films that I'd managed to (...ahem...) purloin whilst munching on crisps and popcorn and drinking whiskey (me) and shandies (Lukas and Danny). The first film was Yes Man which was not as half bad as I thought it would be as it contained that caveat "Warning: Many Scenes Will Contain Jim Carrey" but aside from the odd Carrey-gurn he contained himself and some of the dialogue was extremely well done. I'd read the book (and spotted the author, Danny Wallace, as an extra at a bar in one scene) and it there was about 5% of the book in the film.
Second film was the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" starring a wooden Keanu Reeves playing a wooden alien made of wood (I've made that last bit up). The plot of this film is thus:
Keanu: Humans are scum. You are killing The Earth. We are going to wipe you from this planet.
Woman: But I love my son (even though he's no blood relation to me) !
John Cleese: Here I am in a cameo playing someone very clever. Listen to some Bach.
Keanu: I was wrong! I must save you!!
Then it was back to bed. And my body made me pay for my laziness this morning. Big Time.
Saturday 4 April 2009
One Day Too Soon
Felt oddly detached at work yesterday; the holiday mode always seems to kick in one day early doesn't it? And you end up resenting those wasted hours at work when you could be prematurely extending your holiday even further. But then if you did that the day before would become your resented pre-holiday day, so you'd want that off as well, and so on and so on until you arrive back to the day you were born. Then of course you'd have no money to take the holiday in the first place. Plus you'd be a new-born, which would limit your choice of destinations somewhat. But then again you might get cheap flights.
Peter Handyman came to me about eleven and told me to make sure everything was in order with my current tasks before I left. This took about half an hour. So I decided (as I was in a holiday mood) for once I would (as I decided about a month ago) join the lunchtime pilgrimage to the pub. I popped over to see Andy and asked if "they" were going to the pub (they were) and if it was okay if I joined them (it was) and would you like me to drive there and take a couple of people (it was).
There were eleven of us in the end. The weather was not quite good enough to sit outside but we being men we braved it with our beers. Drinking at lunch is usually fatal to me (as even one pint releases several measures of sleep-inducing hormone into my brain leaving me to struggle through the afternoon in a semi-comatose stupor) but as I'd slipped into my holiday togs already I didn't think it would matter. So I had a pint of John Smiths.
Eleven blokes together with one common theme (work) yapped for an hour and a half about the one thing that eleven blokes together with one common theme (work) would inevitably talk about. Work. I said eleven blokes but really it was ten as I didn't join in too often; mainly because the talking about work simply seemed to be about slagging off other departments and individuals. I don't tend to join in with this sort of thing - not because I'm an excessively nice guy (although like - I think - most people I tend to think I'm a decent enough chap), I just don't really pay that much attention to anything outside the scope of my immediate work. I certainly don't play ego games. So I just sipped my beer and listened to what A had said about B and what C had said D had said about E and that F fancied G whilst H has allegedly slept with I, J and K (I didn't know if this meant all at the same time). They never got to Z, which I think would have been me.
One thing I did notice, though: When anyone 'accidentally' (as that was the impression I got) mentioned Peter Handyman the conversation track swiftly changed and some furtive glances were thrown in my direction. Odd. I hope I'm not viewed as the boss's pet. Or the boss's snitch. I do seem to have the least amount of Handyman flak since he took over from Alan (just one snarling argument now well over a month ago). I hope he's not playing me for an idiot.
The only other subject I managed to join in with was a brief chat about football and even then I struggled, as nothing more than a lapsed Aston Villa fan. And I was found out when someone told me that Emile Heskey was doing well, and I had no understanding of how this related to me, as I had no idea Emile Heskey (who last I know was at Liverpool) now played for the Villa. A lot of the guys found this quite funny for some reason (I just played along).
I crept out of work a few minutes early. Well, half an hour early in fact. My premature voluntary ejection went (I think) completely unnoticed. It helped that Peter Handyman seemed to have disappeared around lunchtime. I'd contributed absolutely nothing to my company since I'd come back from the pub anyhow. I'd really pushed my luck by allowing myself an extra half pint before coming back to work, and spent the remaining time snapping matchsticks with my eyelids. So as I wasn't much use, I thought it okay to go.
Came home in reasonably chipper spirits to commence my holiday to ... a completely empty house! Lukas had left me a very terse note telling me he was at Dannys and was likely to sleepover. Gabe was nowhere to be seen but of course there'd be nowhere other then Lians. No idea about Andrew. No idea about Colin. My only company was Ripley so, as my Lent alcohol ban seems to have been dismissed (is Lent over anyway? I must check when I get the chance) I settled down with another beer and a purring pussy and TV.
Next thing I remember is snapping awake at eight. An amused Gabriel was standing over me, shaking me back from slumberland. He said he would have left me but my snoring was in danger of rupturing the house's foundations.
I shook myself awake then remembered I was suppose to ring Sarah tonight, which I did so, as I wasn't really in the mood for polite conversation. Fortunately, neither was she. She was very sharp with me - surprisingly and oddly upsettingly so. I put down the phone after a very brief ten minute chat, very slightly confused. And slightly rejected.
So much for holidays then. Perhaps tomorrow will bring me better tidings.
Peter Handyman came to me about eleven and told me to make sure everything was in order with my current tasks before I left. This took about half an hour. So I decided (as I was in a holiday mood) for once I would (as I decided about a month ago) join the lunchtime pilgrimage to the pub. I popped over to see Andy and asked if "they" were going to the pub (they were) and if it was okay if I joined them (it was) and would you like me to drive there and take a couple of people (it was).
There were eleven of us in the end. The weather was not quite good enough to sit outside but we being men we braved it with our beers. Drinking at lunch is usually fatal to me (as even one pint releases several measures of sleep-inducing hormone into my brain leaving me to struggle through the afternoon in a semi-comatose stupor) but as I'd slipped into my holiday togs already I didn't think it would matter. So I had a pint of John Smiths.
Eleven blokes together with one common theme (work) yapped for an hour and a half about the one thing that eleven blokes together with one common theme (work) would inevitably talk about. Work. I said eleven blokes but really it was ten as I didn't join in too often; mainly because the talking about work simply seemed to be about slagging off other departments and individuals. I don't tend to join in with this sort of thing - not because I'm an excessively nice guy (although like - I think - most people I tend to think I'm a decent enough chap), I just don't really pay that much attention to anything outside the scope of my immediate work. I certainly don't play ego games. So I just sipped my beer and listened to what A had said about B and what C had said D had said about E and that F fancied G whilst H has allegedly slept with I, J and K (I didn't know if this meant all at the same time). They never got to Z, which I think would have been me.
One thing I did notice, though: When anyone 'accidentally' (as that was the impression I got) mentioned Peter Handyman the conversation track swiftly changed and some furtive glances were thrown in my direction. Odd. I hope I'm not viewed as the boss's pet. Or the boss's snitch. I do seem to have the least amount of Handyman flak since he took over from Alan (just one snarling argument now well over a month ago). I hope he's not playing me for an idiot.
The only other subject I managed to join in with was a brief chat about football and even then I struggled, as nothing more than a lapsed Aston Villa fan. And I was found out when someone told me that Emile Heskey was doing well, and I had no understanding of how this related to me, as I had no idea Emile Heskey (who last I know was at Liverpool) now played for the Villa. A lot of the guys found this quite funny for some reason (I just played along).
I crept out of work a few minutes early. Well, half an hour early in fact. My premature voluntary ejection went (I think) completely unnoticed. It helped that Peter Handyman seemed to have disappeared around lunchtime. I'd contributed absolutely nothing to my company since I'd come back from the pub anyhow. I'd really pushed my luck by allowing myself an extra half pint before coming back to work, and spent the remaining time snapping matchsticks with my eyelids. So as I wasn't much use, I thought it okay to go.
Came home in reasonably chipper spirits to commence my holiday to ... a completely empty house! Lukas had left me a very terse note telling me he was at Dannys and was likely to sleepover. Gabe was nowhere to be seen but of course there'd be nowhere other then Lians. No idea about Andrew. No idea about Colin. My only company was Ripley so, as my Lent alcohol ban seems to have been dismissed (is Lent over anyway? I must check when I get the chance) I settled down with another beer and a purring pussy and TV.
Next thing I remember is snapping awake at eight. An amused Gabriel was standing over me, shaking me back from slumberland. He said he would have left me but my snoring was in danger of rupturing the house's foundations.
I shook myself awake then remembered I was suppose to ring Sarah tonight, which I did so, as I wasn't really in the mood for polite conversation. Fortunately, neither was she. She was very sharp with me - surprisingly and oddly upsettingly so. I put down the phone after a very brief ten minute chat, very slightly confused. And slightly rejected.
So much for holidays then. Perhaps tomorrow will bring me better tidings.
Friday 3 April 2009
You Appear To Be Writing A Blog
I need an extended break. It's been a while - not counting Christmas, it's been six months since I last had some time away from work. The old Duracells have powered down and are in need of re-juicing. I just need a spell on the sidelines; away from my desk and the meetings and the looping code that loops everywhere apart from where you precisely want it to go. When I look out the window at the moment I see skies that are brighter and bluer than a new born baby's eyes and I immediately get to thinking I want some of that. My office smells of recycled sweat and it gets both stifling and suffocating and it gets in your clothes and eventually you cannot wash it out anymore. So I need a break.
I already had next Wednesday to the Wednesday afterwards booked off for our brief and once important and now forgotten trip to Germany. So the idea to bookmark this minor excursion with two extra days off each side to make up a full fortnight off (or if you're counting, sixteen days) contained a few degree of appealing mileage. My only stumbling block would be to clear it with Peter Handyman. Who's been back in the past couple of days but hardly in the sunniest of moods. But, the last time I checked he was still pretending to be my chum so I knew it wouldn't be a completely hopeless endeavor.
Leaving school is marvelous, isn't it? The two major joys of which are no more homework and no more teachers. So, you get into work (with its longer hours) and you start taking work home (because those longer hours are not quite long enough to cover what you need to do) and you encounter bosses (who are far worse than teachers as a teachers could do was lob a board rubber at you whereas bosses can make every day of your working life a intermidable misery. Hold on...)
So wearing my eight-year-old boy's body with its red, nobbly knees and laughably unfashionable pudding-bowl cut I crept up to Peter Handyman's desk. He sat there, staring balefully at the screen. He must have been in a bad mood as you could smell the barely-subdued anger. He looked at me and asked how much I knew about Microsoft Word. I said enough to know it's a complete pile of cack. Peter went on: There's been an new install overnight and now whenever I try to type a letter that bloody paper clip pops up and tells me I'm doing it wrong.
Ah yes. The Microsoft Paperclip, possibly the most hated animated character in history behind Scrappy-Doo and Sir Fred Goodwin. Only my company would install a version of Word on our machines that still had that bloody thing on it. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if an edict came out telling up we were all going to have to revert to Windows 3.1. I once opened a blank word document and typed in "Goodbye Cruel World" just to see if that chuffing paperclip would pop up and say "you appear to be writing a suicide note. Would you like me to help you with that, or perhaps give you the number of the Samaritans?" - but it obviously had the sense keep quiet.
So I reached across to Peter's keyboard and mouse and a few clicks later the pesky paper clip laid six feet under. Peter thanked me and asked what I was after. I said I'd like to extend my holiday a couple of days either side. He made a little bit of a pantomine in appearring to deliberate but then told me that that would be fine once I'd bombed off an email to personel informing them of my requirements. Which I did so immediately at my desk.
So from five-ish tonight I shall have sixteen clear days off. This hath sparkedth my better mood a little. No idea what I'm going to do with so much free time (aside from the time spent in Germany although I've still no real idea what we're all going to do whilst we are over there. I'm relying on Colin to provide the suggestions on that count. Obviously a look around Cologne will be on the agenda, but other than that...)
Came no closer than solving the Lukas/Gabe Basketball/Martial Arts conundrum last night. Last weeks decision (neither of them) was a bit of a cop-out, next week we will be in Germany, so this week I had to take one of them. I told them to flip a coin, hoping (with complete selfishness of course) that Lukas would emerge victorious as I can at least watch him play, but Gabriel emerged the triumphant flipper. Lukas reacted in a way I was quite surprised by - he started crying. Not gushing tears but his face filled up and his lips thinned as he struggled to maintain a twelve-and-a-half year old's expected composure; it was weird and so unLukaslike in seeing him like that. I put my arm around him but he shrugged it off and went stomping off to his room. Bit of an over-reaction, I thought. I asked Gabe if he knew if anything was up with Lukas at school but he just shrugged and said he didn't have anything to do with Lukas at school. So much for sibling concern, then.
Took Gabe to the Martial Arts academy and we had a very brief chat along the way. I asked how he'd gotten things sorted with Lian but he just said they'd gotten back together naturally, whatever that meant. I asked if he'd asked her why she'd not gotten him anything for his birthday but he said the topic had never arisen, and hopefully it never would.
I will ring Sarah up tonight and see if I can persuade her to make the long trip up from Southampton some time before I am off to Germany. It really is about time she met the boys. If she can survive that, then at least I can allow myself a little further hope that this relationship may somehow turn into something concrete.
I already had next Wednesday to the Wednesday afterwards booked off for our brief and once important and now forgotten trip to Germany. So the idea to bookmark this minor excursion with two extra days off each side to make up a full fortnight off (or if you're counting, sixteen days) contained a few degree of appealing mileage. My only stumbling block would be to clear it with Peter Handyman. Who's been back in the past couple of days but hardly in the sunniest of moods. But, the last time I checked he was still pretending to be my chum so I knew it wouldn't be a completely hopeless endeavor.
Leaving school is marvelous, isn't it? The two major joys of which are no more homework and no more teachers. So, you get into work (with its longer hours) and you start taking work home (because those longer hours are not quite long enough to cover what you need to do) and you encounter bosses (who are far worse than teachers as a teachers could do was lob a board rubber at you whereas bosses can make every day of your working life a intermidable misery. Hold on...)
So wearing my eight-year-old boy's body with its red, nobbly knees and laughably unfashionable pudding-bowl cut I crept up to Peter Handyman's desk. He sat there, staring balefully at the screen. He must have been in a bad mood as you could smell the barely-subdued anger. He looked at me and asked how much I knew about Microsoft Word. I said enough to know it's a complete pile of cack. Peter went on: There's been an new install overnight and now whenever I try to type a letter that bloody paper clip pops up and tells me I'm doing it wrong.
Ah yes. The Microsoft Paperclip, possibly the most hated animated character in history behind Scrappy-Doo and Sir Fred Goodwin. Only my company would install a version of Word on our machines that still had that bloody thing on it. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if an edict came out telling up we were all going to have to revert to Windows 3.1. I once opened a blank word document and typed in "Goodbye Cruel World" just to see if that chuffing paperclip would pop up and say "you appear to be writing a suicide note. Would you like me to help you with that, or perhaps give you the number of the Samaritans?" - but it obviously had the sense keep quiet.
So I reached across to Peter's keyboard and mouse and a few clicks later the pesky paper clip laid six feet under. Peter thanked me and asked what I was after. I said I'd like to extend my holiday a couple of days either side. He made a little bit of a pantomine in appearring to deliberate but then told me that that would be fine once I'd bombed off an email to personel informing them of my requirements. Which I did so immediately at my desk.
So from five-ish tonight I shall have sixteen clear days off. This hath sparkedth my better mood a little. No idea what I'm going to do with so much free time (aside from the time spent in Germany although I've still no real idea what we're all going to do whilst we are over there. I'm relying on Colin to provide the suggestions on that count. Obviously a look around Cologne will be on the agenda, but other than that...)
Came no closer than solving the Lukas/Gabe Basketball/Martial Arts conundrum last night. Last weeks decision (neither of them) was a bit of a cop-out, next week we will be in Germany, so this week I had to take one of them. I told them to flip a coin, hoping (with complete selfishness of course) that Lukas would emerge victorious as I can at least watch him play, but Gabriel emerged the triumphant flipper. Lukas reacted in a way I was quite surprised by - he started crying. Not gushing tears but his face filled up and his lips thinned as he struggled to maintain a twelve-and-a-half year old's expected composure; it was weird and so unLukaslike in seeing him like that. I put my arm around him but he shrugged it off and went stomping off to his room. Bit of an over-reaction, I thought. I asked Gabe if he knew if anything was up with Lukas at school but he just shrugged and said he didn't have anything to do with Lukas at school. So much for sibling concern, then.
Took Gabe to the Martial Arts academy and we had a very brief chat along the way. I asked how he'd gotten things sorted with Lian but he just said they'd gotten back together naturally, whatever that meant. I asked if he'd asked her why she'd not gotten him anything for his birthday but he said the topic had never arisen, and hopefully it never would.
I will ring Sarah up tonight and see if I can persuade her to make the long trip up from Southampton some time before I am off to Germany. It really is about time she met the boys. If she can survive that, then at least I can allow myself a little further hope that this relationship may somehow turn into something concrete.
Thursday 2 April 2009
What's That Coming Over The Hill?
April Fool's Day - yet another 'special day' I actively dislike. I think I was stung at an early age (details may follow) and have abhorred this day since I was a pre-teen.
Surely there's no need for a centralised day of tomfoolery any longer. The World Wide Web and Email have put paid to that; almost every day some bogus piece of trash bares pops up and provide a moment's titillation for those sad enough to require a moment's titillation to brighten their lives. For a moment.
Everywhere I've been online today there's been some wag doing their fooling duty. Most of them completely tedious. Please, cyberspace generation, grow up!
Occasionally you do get ones that are a stroke of genius; so much so they grow beyond myth and become accepted as crazy fact. My all-time favourite by a country mile is one from a few years back which claimed that the US state of Alabama had passed state legislation decreeing that the value of pi is three, not 3.14159265358979323846...
This was in line with the text in the bible (I Kings 7:23) which states that the alter font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, meaning that the ratio of circumference to diameter was three, hence - according to God - pi must be three (this would not explain why God decided to craft every other perfect circle in the universe to a circumference/diameter ratio of 3.14159265358979323846...).
The nub of this spoof is that it is perfectly believable; although by claiming this I am not accusing the populace of Alabama to be dumb rednecks - it could have been centred upon demographic of bible-bashers. If people are willing to believe that the Universe was created in six days, and that the world became populated thanks solely to the jigging and poking of one dude and one dame, and that Noah sailed a boat with 20 million critters upon it (none of whom died or got eaten, as generally happens with critters - plus, as Eddie Izzard spotted, how come so many people were wiped out whilst fish and floaty birds got away Scot-free?) I'm sure they're dumb enough to think the value of pi is up for grabs.
This April Fool's has now passed into Urban Legend, which is cool.
My own aversion to April Fool's Day stems from my naivety and desire and willingness to believe - but then I was only (I think) twelve at the time!
I was alone in the house and (just for a change) watching TV. I was waiting for the interesting stuff (probably Top of the Pops) to start at seven but was half-watching the light-news/entertainment magazine show, Nationwide (I was still too callow to have the hots for Sue Lawley). My quarter-interest was piqued by a segment introduced solemnly with a "some viewers may find some of the images contained within the following report disturbing".
This seems extremely embarrassing and ridiculous now, but bear with me and remember I was twelve (and a young twelve):
The report followed complaints by locals of "strange-goings-on" at a Government Research Facility. A Crack Nationwide reporting team was dispatched but were denied access other than a brief hand-over-the-camera-lens interview that stated nothing of any dubiousness was occurring. But! The Crack reporting team broke into the establishment and filmed:
(...please don't laugh...)
A living, breathing, Tyrannosaurus Rex!
Oh, I wanted to believe. I so wanted to believe mankind had managed to resurrect our Jurassic friends. In fact I wanted to believe so much that I did! Ignoring the rather obvious date of the report, the unlikelihood of said event, and the general crappiness of the "filmed" dinosaur (these were very much pre-Jurassic Park days - Doctor Who was still be chased by men in rubber suits).
In fact I wanted to believe so much that I spoke to my dad about it once he'd come in from work. Which at the time was a rare occurrence.
Of course none of my school-chums believed it. But I wanted to believe it *so* much that I stood as the lone supporter of such insanity.
April 2nd popped along and Nationwide showed a still of a playful T-Rex (and very, very obviously fake) with the "leader" of the Crack reporting team's head in its rubber-toothed jaws.
It broke my heart. It wasn't that I felt embarrassed by my devotion to the hat-stand notion that some Brit boffins had found a way to resurrect dinosaurs (although the following morning at school was notably hellish, more so than usual). It was the disappointment that something so wonderful was simply a jape. My dreams and illusions of running from the school bus whilst being pursued by Pterodactyls and Dimetrodons - shattered. How cruel is it to do something like that to a child?
If only I'd had a Michael Crichton moment and worked out I'd just seen the catalyst to a best-selling thriller that would be turned into a ground-breaking film followed by a decidedly lacklustre sequel and a slightly better third movie (and, apparently, a fourth, on the way).
My dad didn't let me forget about my foolishness for another seventeen years (until we stopped talking to each other altogether). If he ever felt I was out-smarting him in a group setting, he would say "remember that time Brynley thought they'd brought T-Rex back to life" and then go on to recall my foolishness whilst I sat reddening and sinking into my seat.
Needless to say, nothing foolish happened at Chez BrynT yesterday...
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Oops
Another day without Peter Handyman. Isn't it strange how an entire department grinds to a halt once the manager disappears? Except that of course it doesn't, everything just trundles along and you'd be hard-pressed to even notice that the manager isn't present. Therefore it's rather easy to surmise that the manager is not the brains of any operation - he's the appendix.
I've had a quiet couple of days. I've walked down the hill twice in the last couple of days, just to enjoy the relative sunshine and the sensation of air filling (and then escaping from) my lungs. On a less than pleasant aspect I felt quite ragged and light-headed once I was back up the hill and into work. I even get exhausted now just walking a couple of miles; strange to think I used to run at least this distance most days. I've been hoping the more pleasant weather may have served to return my rusted running mojo back to me, but so far, there's zero sign of this. It is alarming how something that stole a fair chunk of my time now has slid from my schedule and there's no sign of a relapse. I'm not even bothered now that I can't get on the jeans I used to be able to get on until up to about Christmas; or even that I've tipped over the fifteen stone mark. I think fifteen stones is quite reasonable for someone of my height and my age. I could be slimmer and I could be fitter, but would it make me any happier?
Speaking of happier, someone who is much happier is Colin, although he's reminded me of something that stupidly had completely slipped my mind, which in turn had made me unhappy. Plus the news that Colin has given me has not exactly made me happy.
He's sorted, and he is on his way, and he is off abroad again. Not to Germany this time, but to Eindhoven, where he's secured himself a job with Phillips, a six-month contract as a software engineer. I asked him why he hasn't sorted himself something in the UK, to which he said he'd tried, but there is just nothing going at the moment, so he was forced to set his sights further afield and after a ton of negotiation and a bit of pleading and an intense drop in his salary expectations, he's secured himself a job, and has managed to sort accommodation as well. I asked him if this explains all his absences of late, but the said there was no connection. He said: I've told you before Bryn, I'm sorry but I don't like it here and I don't like being here. I really can't stand Andrew because he's so bloody full of how wonderful he is, although I can't imagine I was any different at his age. Lukas is just some weird, unemotional shell, and Gabriel, who's the only one of your kids I can make any connection to, is never around.
I told him I was sorry we didn't meet his standards. He told me there was no need for me to be like that: There's nothing wrong with you or your lads, he explained. It's just not me. I thought we'd be two single blokes on the pussy-prowl together but you only came out with me once and you made it dead clear you hated every minute of it, so I stopped asking. It's not a problem, we've just grown into two different blokes. Doesn't mean we have to stop being brothers, but we ain't going to be buddies.
I asked how are we going to be brothers when he's in Eindhoven. We didn't make too good a job of it whilst he was in Cologne. Colin said, well, we'll just have to make sure we make a better job of it.
He continued: Anyway, how did your weekend go? Gabe said you'd gone down south to chase some woman or something? The one you met on our speed-date sesh?
I corrected him on multiple accounts, explained that the weekend had gone very well indeed (without divulging the nitty-gritty) and if things continual to go well myself and Sarah could very well become a couple. Colin actually patted me on the back! I didn't feel patronised ... much. He said what my next plans were and I told him about Sarah and Ruth coming up to Chez BrynT over Easter, to which Colin frowned and said won't they be a bit surprised when they get here and find the house locked up and empty. I asked for an explanation; Colin opened his eyes wide and said one word: Germany.
Jeez. What an idiot. The "final" family holiday that I held so dear just a month ago - so much so that I was physically twisting arms and laying on the emotional blackmail in order to get all three of my sons to go with me - had totally fallen out of my mind. I dusted down a few old notes in my head and shoved them back into my memory: Yep, we fly to Cologne from East Midlands around midday on Thursday, the day before Good Friday, and we return on Tuesday, early afternoon. No idea of what we are doing and where we are staying, although I know it is Colin's responsibility for the latter.
So a little later I was on the phone to Sarah, apologising for making arrangements for the Easter weekend, explaining that I had forgotten we were spending the "weekend" (only a tiny white lie) in Germany. She did not sound impressed, even questioning how something so fundamental as a family trip abroad could have slipped from my mind. I tried to make light of my stupidity by admitting that I was purely at fault and had been completely dumb. I don't think this admission generated much in the way of sympathy, and Sarah's "bye" measured a considerable amount of degrees lower that her previous "hello".
Damn.
I've had a quiet couple of days. I've walked down the hill twice in the last couple of days, just to enjoy the relative sunshine and the sensation of air filling (and then escaping from) my lungs. On a less than pleasant aspect I felt quite ragged and light-headed once I was back up the hill and into work. I even get exhausted now just walking a couple of miles; strange to think I used to run at least this distance most days. I've been hoping the more pleasant weather may have served to return my rusted running mojo back to me, but so far, there's zero sign of this. It is alarming how something that stole a fair chunk of my time now has slid from my schedule and there's no sign of a relapse. I'm not even bothered now that I can't get on the jeans I used to be able to get on until up to about Christmas; or even that I've tipped over the fifteen stone mark. I think fifteen stones is quite reasonable for someone of my height and my age. I could be slimmer and I could be fitter, but would it make me any happier?
Speaking of happier, someone who is much happier is Colin, although he's reminded me of something that stupidly had completely slipped my mind, which in turn had made me unhappy. Plus the news that Colin has given me has not exactly made me happy.
He's sorted, and he is on his way, and he is off abroad again. Not to Germany this time, but to Eindhoven, where he's secured himself a job with Phillips, a six-month contract as a software engineer. I asked him why he hasn't sorted himself something in the UK, to which he said he'd tried, but there is just nothing going at the moment, so he was forced to set his sights further afield and after a ton of negotiation and a bit of pleading and an intense drop in his salary expectations, he's secured himself a job, and has managed to sort accommodation as well. I asked him if this explains all his absences of late, but the said there was no connection. He said: I've told you before Bryn, I'm sorry but I don't like it here and I don't like being here. I really can't stand Andrew because he's so bloody full of how wonderful he is, although I can't imagine I was any different at his age. Lukas is just some weird, unemotional shell, and Gabriel, who's the only one of your kids I can make any connection to, is never around.
I told him I was sorry we didn't meet his standards. He told me there was no need for me to be like that: There's nothing wrong with you or your lads, he explained. It's just not me. I thought we'd be two single blokes on the pussy-prowl together but you only came out with me once and you made it dead clear you hated every minute of it, so I stopped asking. It's not a problem, we've just grown into two different blokes. Doesn't mean we have to stop being brothers, but we ain't going to be buddies.
I asked how are we going to be brothers when he's in Eindhoven. We didn't make too good a job of it whilst he was in Cologne. Colin said, well, we'll just have to make sure we make a better job of it.
He continued: Anyway, how did your weekend go? Gabe said you'd gone down south to chase some woman or something? The one you met on our speed-date sesh?
I corrected him on multiple accounts, explained that the weekend had gone very well indeed (without divulging the nitty-gritty) and if things continual to go well myself and Sarah could very well become a couple. Colin actually patted me on the back! I didn't feel patronised ... much. He said what my next plans were and I told him about Sarah and Ruth coming up to Chez BrynT over Easter, to which Colin frowned and said won't they be a bit surprised when they get here and find the house locked up and empty. I asked for an explanation; Colin opened his eyes wide and said one word: Germany.
Jeez. What an idiot. The "final" family holiday that I held so dear just a month ago - so much so that I was physically twisting arms and laying on the emotional blackmail in order to get all three of my sons to go with me - had totally fallen out of my mind. I dusted down a few old notes in my head and shoved them back into my memory: Yep, we fly to Cologne from East Midlands around midday on Thursday, the day before Good Friday, and we return on Tuesday, early afternoon. No idea of what we are doing and where we are staying, although I know it is Colin's responsibility for the latter.
So a little later I was on the phone to Sarah, apologising for making arrangements for the Easter weekend, explaining that I had forgotten we were spending the "weekend" (only a tiny white lie) in Germany. She did not sound impressed, even questioning how something so fundamental as a family trip abroad could have slipped from my mind. I tried to make light of my stupidity by admitting that I was purely at fault and had been completely dumb. I don't think this admission generated much in the way of sympathy, and Sarah's "bye" measured a considerable amount of degrees lower that her previous "hello".
Damn.
Tuesday 31 March 2009
Back to Earth
I feel odd and very slightly unattached. I can't quite put my finger on it, nor can I quite capture it and put it into words.
I seem to re-discovered myself. Does that sound a little self-obsessed? Perhaps a tad new-age? Should I be lying on some semi-listening shrink's coach, talking about myself? Prattling on and on about myself?
The mask of Bryn-the-dad seems to have slipped. It's taken a long time. Far, far too long. And of course behind this mask of Bryn-the-dad there's the Bryn-the-person who's been stuck there for bloody ages and ain't too happy about it.
But I've only myself to blame. And I've Sarah to thank.
I'm in love!!
No I'm not, and there's the rub. I like Sarah enormously; she's good company and interesting and ... and now I'm struggling. Oh and she's attractive; perhaps too attractive for me. And she's maintained herself a great figure for her age (Yikes! There's that phrase again) that again is perhaps too good for someone so rapidly going to seed like myself.
Is there that spark? No. That spark belonged to Poppy and I think she took it with her to the netherworld.
But then is that a problem? What's the alternative? Two middle-aged people having lost their partners (one through divorce, one through death) facing a lonely future?
Of course it's a problem. I can't fool Sarah and it would be selfish for me to even considering doing so. If I put on the act just to prevent my future lonliness how could that be possible fair of me? She could certainly do better than me; she could find someone to genuinely dote on her every step.
Too much analysis and too much thinking as usual. I need to give it time; I need to see how things develop - although how they are going to develop when one hundred and fifty miles exist between us is one further question.
I rang Sarah on Sunday night, as promised. This time the niceties were out of the way at much swifter speed than usual, and we actually began to talk about us. Not about Sarah and I, the individuals, but as Sarah and I, the potential coupling. I guess once you've placed one particularily personal part of your body inside the particularily personal part of someone else it's a lot easier to talk about something as emotionally weighted as a relationship.
Sarah asked how I felt about things, meaning of course how I felt about things between us. I said I was a little confused but certainly felt nothing negative about the situation. Sarah said she felt exactly the same way. Then said: I suppose the most confusing thing is where we go from here. I agreed, then found myself saying how about you and Ruth coming up here and meeting the boys? This was evidently the correct thing to say as it was met with an enthusiastic response. We made arrangements for the bank holiday weekend. More fun and more people - a household of seven.
I decided to take the break away from Chez BrynT as a reboot moment and try and renegociate warmer relationships with the kids. This I did by completely ignoring the fact that I had departed on not the closest of terms. I'm sure I'd hammered the point home with my feelings towards their own lack of feelings to their mother's memory by my previous, admittedly childish actions. As much as such a point can be hammered into the thick skulls of teenage boys. So I considered it case closed.
The house was not as trashed as I thought it could have been. No teenage orgies seemed to have taken place, nor had it seems my address appeared on Faceachebook as an open invitation to half the world's ne'erthewells. But it wasn't exactly spring-clean clean as well, so I insisted we all jumped out of beds early on Sunday morning and have it out with the rubbish and the dust-bunnies. Both Lukas and Gabriel bounced out of slumberland with extraordinary (and unexpected) enthusiasm; Andrew proved a little more difficult to persuade as he claimed he'd made no contribution to the mess, to which Lukas opined: B0llocks. I spat on the fizzing fuse that erupted and began to work towards the powderkeg filled to overflowing with sibling fireworks by telling Andrew it was 'all boys together' and that I'd really appreciate his aid. So after a very long shower Andrew descended to the lounge and began to poke at things with a duster.
The return to a livable standard of cleanliness was hence a swift journey. As a reward (and as it was a Sunday) I said I'd cook one of my testicle-boiling chills for lunch. And not entirely out of bloody quorn.
I asked Gabe if an emergency had arisen that required the use of the twenty-quid I'd left them. He said it had. I asked him what had happened. He said he and Lukas had discovered the house's supply of take-away pizzas had reached dangerously sparse levels.
I also asked about the continually absent Colin. Lukas told me Colin had popped in Saturday morning and spent most of the day hogging the television watching rugby. I said I thought the rugby had finished. Lukas said he was watching the Lions verses the Tigers, or something. Then another game. Then he'd gone out. And had not as yet re-appearred. I am beginning to wonder just what little bro' is getting up to.
After such a pleasant and ground-breaking weekend it was inevitable the first couple of days of this week would see me sinking back to mundaneness. Meetings follow meetings as the people who act as the catalysts to much of what I do stand on their hands and do nothing but call more meetings. The only upside has been that Peter Handyman has been off sick for two days, meaning I've missed my latest one-to-one with him. I am quite pleased about that.
I seem to re-discovered myself. Does that sound a little self-obsessed? Perhaps a tad new-age? Should I be lying on some semi-listening shrink's coach, talking about myself? Prattling on and on about myself?
The mask of Bryn-the-dad seems to have slipped. It's taken a long time. Far, far too long. And of course behind this mask of Bryn-the-dad there's the Bryn-the-person who's been stuck there for bloody ages and ain't too happy about it.
But I've only myself to blame. And I've Sarah to thank.
I'm in love!!
No I'm not, and there's the rub. I like Sarah enormously; she's good company and interesting and ... and now I'm struggling. Oh and she's attractive; perhaps too attractive for me. And she's maintained herself a great figure for her age (Yikes! There's that phrase again) that again is perhaps too good for someone so rapidly going to seed like myself.
Is there that spark? No. That spark belonged to Poppy and I think she took it with her to the netherworld.
But then is that a problem? What's the alternative? Two middle-aged people having lost their partners (one through divorce, one through death) facing a lonely future?
Of course it's a problem. I can't fool Sarah and it would be selfish for me to even considering doing so. If I put on the act just to prevent my future lonliness how could that be possible fair of me? She could certainly do better than me; she could find someone to genuinely dote on her every step.
Too much analysis and too much thinking as usual. I need to give it time; I need to see how things develop - although how they are going to develop when one hundred and fifty miles exist between us is one further question.
I rang Sarah on Sunday night, as promised. This time the niceties were out of the way at much swifter speed than usual, and we actually began to talk about us. Not about Sarah and I, the individuals, but as Sarah and I, the potential coupling. I guess once you've placed one particularily personal part of your body inside the particularily personal part of someone else it's a lot easier to talk about something as emotionally weighted as a relationship.
Sarah asked how I felt about things, meaning of course how I felt about things between us. I said I was a little confused but certainly felt nothing negative about the situation. Sarah said she felt exactly the same way. Then said: I suppose the most confusing thing is where we go from here. I agreed, then found myself saying how about you and Ruth coming up here and meeting the boys? This was evidently the correct thing to say as it was met with an enthusiastic response. We made arrangements for the bank holiday weekend. More fun and more people - a household of seven.
I decided to take the break away from Chez BrynT as a reboot moment and try and renegociate warmer relationships with the kids. This I did by completely ignoring the fact that I had departed on not the closest of terms. I'm sure I'd hammered the point home with my feelings towards their own lack of feelings to their mother's memory by my previous, admittedly childish actions. As much as such a point can be hammered into the thick skulls of teenage boys. So I considered it case closed.
The house was not as trashed as I thought it could have been. No teenage orgies seemed to have taken place, nor had it seems my address appeared on Faceachebook as an open invitation to half the world's ne'erthewells. But it wasn't exactly spring-clean clean as well, so I insisted we all jumped out of beds early on Sunday morning and have it out with the rubbish and the dust-bunnies. Both Lukas and Gabriel bounced out of slumberland with extraordinary (and unexpected) enthusiasm; Andrew proved a little more difficult to persuade as he claimed he'd made no contribution to the mess, to which Lukas opined: B0llocks. I spat on the fizzing fuse that erupted and began to work towards the powderkeg filled to overflowing with sibling fireworks by telling Andrew it was 'all boys together' and that I'd really appreciate his aid. So after a very long shower Andrew descended to the lounge and began to poke at things with a duster.
The return to a livable standard of cleanliness was hence a swift journey. As a reward (and as it was a Sunday) I said I'd cook one of my testicle-boiling chills for lunch. And not entirely out of bloody quorn.
I asked Gabe if an emergency had arisen that required the use of the twenty-quid I'd left them. He said it had. I asked him what had happened. He said he and Lukas had discovered the house's supply of take-away pizzas had reached dangerously sparse levels.
I also asked about the continually absent Colin. Lukas told me Colin had popped in Saturday morning and spent most of the day hogging the television watching rugby. I said I thought the rugby had finished. Lukas said he was watching the Lions verses the Tigers, or something. Then another game. Then he'd gone out. And had not as yet re-appearred. I am beginning to wonder just what little bro' is getting up to.
After such a pleasant and ground-breaking weekend it was inevitable the first couple of days of this week would see me sinking back to mundaneness. Meetings follow meetings as the people who act as the catalysts to much of what I do stand on their hands and do nothing but call more meetings. The only upside has been that Peter Handyman has been off sick for two days, meaning I've missed my latest one-to-one with him. I am quite pleased about that.
Monday 30 March 2009
Hula Doll
One of my favourite The Wedding Present lyrics (although not from one of my favourite The Wedding Present songs: "Hula Doll") goes thus:
"You said there's nothing that turns you on more
Than waking up with someone you've not woken up with before"
This is not quite appropriate for me and Sarah as the song's about some dude attempting to explain a pointless one night stand to his beloved.
I think my re-write would be:
"I said there's nowt that turns me red more
then waking up in the nuddy with some woman you barely knew he night before"
Waking up was very odd (and like most people I've woken up in some strange places before). There was none of that comedy fall-back rubbish when you turn in your lovely snug bed to be mortally surprised by the person kipping next to you (an event that only ever occurs in the heads of sit-com writers who have run out of ideas). I think I was aware of where I was before I even awake, and it was a gentle awakening as I wafted like a feather out of unconsciousness rather than being plucked. I was not in my own bedroom - the pinkiness of my surroundings confirmed that. Plus there were far too many pointless cushions and a couple of soft toys at the end of the bed.
I risked a glance over to Sarah, but saw nothing but the back of her head with its cascading ginger locks. She was breathing lightly and regularly. I joined up the moles on her back and came up with a giraffe (heck, if the Ancient Greeks can conjour a giant bear out of a dozen stars...). I wondered what the polite thing to do would be. Maybe ease myself out of bed, get dressed, leave a 'Ta, Luv' note on the kitchen table along with £30 in fivers? Or nonchantlantly and noisily traipse around the bedroom with everything a-swingin', farting, belching and scratching my @rse as if I'd always lived there?
I decided to ease myself out of bed, get dressed, and make a cup of coffee. Then wait for Sarah to get up and deal with things from there. Maybe make breakfast? This is how I'd dealt with this predicament the last time I woke up with a female in my bed. But then as that had been Colin's daughter Amber the circumstances could not have been more different.
One toe out of bed and on the floor and Sarah stirred, turned, blinked herself awake, looked at me, and smiled. Then she reached across and gave me a quick kiss. She said: Morning. I replied in kind. Then she snuggled up to me. The feel of her mammaries pressing against the side of the body got Mr Pecker all excited again; strangely I hoped Sarah wouldn't notice. I pulled my foot back under the covers as it was getting cold.
Sarah asked how I felt. Oh dear, this was definitely one of those leading female-type questions to which any answer can be interpreted in any way. So I told her I had a bit of a head. Sarah said it was usually the woman's job to feign a headache. I laughed and for some reason said it wasn't that bad. Sarah then said well, that's good news, isn't it?
She'd noticed. Her right hand, which has been idly pulling on my chest hairs, began a slow (and slightly tortuous) journey southward...
Twice within twenty-four hours. Must be Christmas.
We made breakfast together. Well, I put on and then buttered up the toast. Sarah scrambled the eggs. I didn't go into a Colin-style tirrade about how eggs are acquired from hens. Mainly as I don't really know the ins-and-outs myself. Not a fan of them myself (unless they're an excuse to be served with bacon, sausages, mushrooms, hash browns, beans, tomatoes, fried bread, toast, tea, etc, etc) as they're a bit tasteless on their own. But eggs is eggs.
So we chatted nicely over breakfast and tea and coffee (not all together). The topic that we'd just made love to each other twice in a very short period failed to arise. It was like we were straight back to being half-hearted acquantences, not two people who'd discovered that their genitalia clipped together just as God intended.
But we'd made that next step. Which I guess was the important thing.
Sarah asked how long I was intending to stay around. I sort of shrugged and explained that I had no plans for the rest of the day, which I guess was nicely non-committal. I suggested she showed me the heady sights of Southampton. Sarah said that that should kill ten minutes. She then asked if I would come with her to pick Ruth up.
Uh - not sure how I felt about that. Was it a test? Was it to see if I was genuinely interested in her and any potential relationship or just wanted a suitable parking place for my todger? I left it to my heart and my heart heard my lips voice: Sure, that'd be lovely.
I didn't know fetching Ruth would result in a walk in a cold. Sarah guided me on a detour that meant I at least got to see the sea. At least as well I got to see a bit of Southampton. And the least said about this the better.
We reached Sarah's sisters (who gave me an undeniable and a little undeserved once-over with narrow eyes) and picked up Ruth, who was taller and plumper than I'd imagined (not that she was fat enough to become the subject of a Channel 5 documentary). I got introduced purely as "Bryn" - Ruth looked at me in the way that said: I don't know who you are and guess what? I care even less.
We all walked back, playing awkwardly-happy families. Time had creaked on to three by the time we'd got back so I chose to quit whilst I seemed ahead and made my excuses. Sarah seemed oddly crestfallen by my decision, but she'd added the random element of Ruth into the mix so she'd only herself to blame. She kissed me and asked if I'd call her tomorrow. I said I would.
Drove back home, buoyed with emotion, elation and confusion. A bit of an inner battle took place all the way, but elation won in the end. Took five hours to get back but I had dinner at halfway. Came home to pizza boxes on the living room floor and boys in nothing but grubby pants on the settees working their way through a selection of DVDs. All three acknowledged my return with a grunt.
Good to be home, eh?
"You said there's nothing that turns you on more
Than waking up with someone you've not woken up with before"
This is not quite appropriate for me and Sarah as the song's about some dude attempting to explain a pointless one night stand to his beloved.
I think my re-write would be:
"I said there's nowt that turns me red more
then waking up in the nuddy with some woman you barely knew he night before"
Waking up was very odd (and like most people I've woken up in some strange places before). There was none of that comedy fall-back rubbish when you turn in your lovely snug bed to be mortally surprised by the person kipping next to you (an event that only ever occurs in the heads of sit-com writers who have run out of ideas). I think I was aware of where I was before I even awake, and it was a gentle awakening as I wafted like a feather out of unconsciousness rather than being plucked. I was not in my own bedroom - the pinkiness of my surroundings confirmed that. Plus there were far too many pointless cushions and a couple of soft toys at the end of the bed.
I risked a glance over to Sarah, but saw nothing but the back of her head with its cascading ginger locks. She was breathing lightly and regularly. I joined up the moles on her back and came up with a giraffe (heck, if the Ancient Greeks can conjour a giant bear out of a dozen stars...). I wondered what the polite thing to do would be. Maybe ease myself out of bed, get dressed, leave a 'Ta, Luv' note on the kitchen table along with £30 in fivers? Or nonchantlantly and noisily traipse around the bedroom with everything a-swingin', farting, belching and scratching my @rse as if I'd always lived there?
I decided to ease myself out of bed, get dressed, and make a cup of coffee. Then wait for Sarah to get up and deal with things from there. Maybe make breakfast? This is how I'd dealt with this predicament the last time I woke up with a female in my bed. But then as that had been Colin's daughter Amber the circumstances could not have been more different.
One toe out of bed and on the floor and Sarah stirred, turned, blinked herself awake, looked at me, and smiled. Then she reached across and gave me a quick kiss. She said: Morning. I replied in kind. Then she snuggled up to me. The feel of her mammaries pressing against the side of the body got Mr Pecker all excited again; strangely I hoped Sarah wouldn't notice. I pulled my foot back under the covers as it was getting cold.
Sarah asked how I felt. Oh dear, this was definitely one of those leading female-type questions to which any answer can be interpreted in any way. So I told her I had a bit of a head. Sarah said it was usually the woman's job to feign a headache. I laughed and for some reason said it wasn't that bad. Sarah then said well, that's good news, isn't it?
She'd noticed. Her right hand, which has been idly pulling on my chest hairs, began a slow (and slightly tortuous) journey southward...
Twice within twenty-four hours. Must be Christmas.
We made breakfast together. Well, I put on and then buttered up the toast. Sarah scrambled the eggs. I didn't go into a Colin-style tirrade about how eggs are acquired from hens. Mainly as I don't really know the ins-and-outs myself. Not a fan of them myself (unless they're an excuse to be served with bacon, sausages, mushrooms, hash browns, beans, tomatoes, fried bread, toast, tea, etc, etc) as they're a bit tasteless on their own. But eggs is eggs.
So we chatted nicely over breakfast and tea and coffee (not all together). The topic that we'd just made love to each other twice in a very short period failed to arise. It was like we were straight back to being half-hearted acquantences, not two people who'd discovered that their genitalia clipped together just as God intended.
But we'd made that next step. Which I guess was the important thing.
Sarah asked how long I was intending to stay around. I sort of shrugged and explained that I had no plans for the rest of the day, which I guess was nicely non-committal. I suggested she showed me the heady sights of Southampton. Sarah said that that should kill ten minutes. She then asked if I would come with her to pick Ruth up.
Uh - not sure how I felt about that. Was it a test? Was it to see if I was genuinely interested in her and any potential relationship or just wanted a suitable parking place for my todger? I left it to my heart and my heart heard my lips voice: Sure, that'd be lovely.
I didn't know fetching Ruth would result in a walk in a cold. Sarah guided me on a detour that meant I at least got to see the sea. At least as well I got to see a bit of Southampton. And the least said about this the better.
We reached Sarah's sisters (who gave me an undeniable and a little undeserved once-over with narrow eyes) and picked up Ruth, who was taller and plumper than I'd imagined (not that she was fat enough to become the subject of a Channel 5 documentary). I got introduced purely as "Bryn" - Ruth looked at me in the way that said: I don't know who you are and guess what? I care even less.
We all walked back, playing awkwardly-happy families. Time had creaked on to three by the time we'd got back so I chose to quit whilst I seemed ahead and made my excuses. Sarah seemed oddly crestfallen by my decision, but she'd added the random element of Ruth into the mix so she'd only herself to blame. She kissed me and asked if I'd call her tomorrow. I said I would.
Drove back home, buoyed with emotion, elation and confusion. A bit of an inner battle took place all the way, but elation won in the end. Took five hours to get back but I had dinner at halfway. Came home to pizza boxes on the living room floor and boys in nothing but grubby pants on the settees working their way through a selection of DVDs. All three acknowledged my return with a grunt.
Good to be home, eh?
Sunday 29 March 2009
Darn Sarf - Part II
As from yesterday, Sarah greeted my appearance at her front door with a heart-settling smile and an unguarded and natural kiss. She then told me that I smelt nice which was a tiny bit odd as I hadn't put on any aftershave or similar smelly, but I brushed it off as at least something positive.
Sarah took my coat and ushered me into a small and compact room with nothing but a small settee, table, a bookcase and various electronics. On the table was a breathing bottle of Rioja and a couple of glasses, which Sarah said I could help myself to if I so desired. I must cowardly admit at this point that nerves were playing a slight havoc within me, so I conveniently ignored my no booze for Lent policy and poured myself a decent portion, after Sarah had apologised for not joining me immediately but dinner was at a crucial point and was in need of her express attention. She asked if I was still a temporary vegetarian which I confirmed; but as Sarah I knew herself didn't do the meat thing it wouldn't have mattered.
I sat down and sipped my wine. I'm not a wine man - if I ever spit out wine after tasting it it's because I don't like it, not because I'm appraising it without getting pi$$ed. I hate all that false pretence in restaurants where the waiter pours you a bit to allow you to play the charade of tasting it as if you know the first thing about what you're about to pour down your throat. I do wonder how many waiters run back giggling into the kitchen after pouring a mix of ribena and anti-freeze into some pleb's glass and it receiving the thumbs up.
I sipped my Rioja and cast a discerning eye over Sarah's reading predilections. No idea what I'd expected to find, whether it be dusty academic tomes or the complete works of Barbara Cartland. In the end there seemed a variable mix of volumes with chick lit. winning the battle for supremacy. There were several well-thumbed Marian Keyes and a couple of Meg Cabots and a further odd sprinkling of various names I'm not well read enough to be familiar with. There seemed also to be a complete library of Harry Potters that were almost falling apart; but I hoped they belonged to Ruth.
There were also three bibles. I made a strict mental note to myself not to mention religion all evening. Aside from my monthly habit of sacrificing a new-born baby to the true king himself, Beelzebub, Lord of Darkness.
Five minutes passed with just me and my wine. Getting bored, I went in search of Sarah, and found her gently chopping up something orange in the kitchen. She smiled when I came in asked if the wine met my approval. I said it was nice but then wine was not really my thing; I was more of a single malt man. Sarah frowned and asked what single malt was. I informed her it was Whiskey; which seemed to throw her a bit, but then she laughed whatever it was off and said she barely drank herself ("aside from a glass of white wine in the bath" - to which I replied I wouldn't think a glass of white wine would be enough to fill a bath, which received a slight giggle in recognition of it being a joke of some description) and never touched spirits.
There was (horror!) a brief awkward pause which I filled by asking where Ruth was. She was at Sarah's sisters was the reply. This both annoyed me and relieved me as I was slightly looking forwards to meeting her and making comparisons to my own (male) children; but then again I would not have perhaps been able to cope with a little girl taking an instant dislike to me (or an over-bearing love of, as sometimes has happened in the past), so I guess it was balanced.
Sarah pointed me over to the dining table and told me to take a seat as dinner was imminent. So I yelled Heck no, bitch, ain't no lady gonna boss me around. No I didn't, I took my seat like a good boy and waited to be served. I scanned my mind for things I find utterly inedible (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage boiled to the point beyond disintegrating mushiness) and the coping measures I'd instigate should any of them be served up before me.
I had no worries - it was a risotto with orange lumps in it; although they were completely palatable orange lumps. I didn't ask what they were, but they were either parsnip or squash or turnip or one of those other slight odd vegetables that come in medley packs but get chucked in the bin. At least in our household.
The meal went down very well, as did the Rioja and a second bottle, a Cabernet Merlot. As ever with Sarah, the conversation flowed freely and without interruption and we laughed genuinely at each other's jibes and asides and jokes.
We moved back into the little room with the bookcase and small settee. Sarah asked what music I liked and I came up the non-committal "all kinds" (as I doubt her CD collection contained "Touch Me I'm Sick" by Mudhoney) which was a mistake as she pressed a few buttons and Lennon & McCartney came on introducing Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I can just about stick the Kinks from the forgotten sixties, but definitely not the bloody Beatles.
Quite swiftly the wine took full effect. The invasions of our personal spaces by each other became more pronounced until Sarah was virtually sat in my lap. Once John Lennon's nasal tones had spat out the final bars of A Day In The Life (and that pointless looped bit had come and gone), Sarah reached for my glass, put in gently down on the floor, then took my face and pushed our lips together. It was rather nice - or at least the long-forgotten dual-purpose appendage in my trousers thought so.
Things became a little confused for the next couple of hours. But they were very nice.
And Sarah fixed me eggs for breakfast.
Sarah took my coat and ushered me into a small and compact room with nothing but a small settee, table, a bookcase and various electronics. On the table was a breathing bottle of Rioja and a couple of glasses, which Sarah said I could help myself to if I so desired. I must cowardly admit at this point that nerves were playing a slight havoc within me, so I conveniently ignored my no booze for Lent policy and poured myself a decent portion, after Sarah had apologised for not joining me immediately but dinner was at a crucial point and was in need of her express attention. She asked if I was still a temporary vegetarian which I confirmed; but as Sarah I knew herself didn't do the meat thing it wouldn't have mattered.
I sat down and sipped my wine. I'm not a wine man - if I ever spit out wine after tasting it it's because I don't like it, not because I'm appraising it without getting pi$$ed. I hate all that false pretence in restaurants where the waiter pours you a bit to allow you to play the charade of tasting it as if you know the first thing about what you're about to pour down your throat. I do wonder how many waiters run back giggling into the kitchen after pouring a mix of ribena and anti-freeze into some pleb's glass and it receiving the thumbs up.
I sipped my Rioja and cast a discerning eye over Sarah's reading predilections. No idea what I'd expected to find, whether it be dusty academic tomes or the complete works of Barbara Cartland. In the end there seemed a variable mix of volumes with chick lit. winning the battle for supremacy. There were several well-thumbed Marian Keyes and a couple of Meg Cabots and a further odd sprinkling of various names I'm not well read enough to be familiar with. There seemed also to be a complete library of Harry Potters that were almost falling apart; but I hoped they belonged to Ruth.
There were also three bibles. I made a strict mental note to myself not to mention religion all evening. Aside from my monthly habit of sacrificing a new-born baby to the true king himself, Beelzebub, Lord of Darkness.
Five minutes passed with just me and my wine. Getting bored, I went in search of Sarah, and found her gently chopping up something orange in the kitchen. She smiled when I came in asked if the wine met my approval. I said it was nice but then wine was not really my thing; I was more of a single malt man. Sarah frowned and asked what single malt was. I informed her it was Whiskey; which seemed to throw her a bit, but then she laughed whatever it was off and said she barely drank herself ("aside from a glass of white wine in the bath" - to which I replied I wouldn't think a glass of white wine would be enough to fill a bath, which received a slight giggle in recognition of it being a joke of some description) and never touched spirits.
There was (horror!) a brief awkward pause which I filled by asking where Ruth was. She was at Sarah's sisters was the reply. This both annoyed me and relieved me as I was slightly looking forwards to meeting her and making comparisons to my own (male) children; but then again I would not have perhaps been able to cope with a little girl taking an instant dislike to me (or an over-bearing love of, as sometimes has happened in the past), so I guess it was balanced.
Sarah pointed me over to the dining table and told me to take a seat as dinner was imminent. So I yelled Heck no, bitch, ain't no lady gonna boss me around. No I didn't, I took my seat like a good boy and waited to be served. I scanned my mind for things I find utterly inedible (broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage boiled to the point beyond disintegrating mushiness) and the coping measures I'd instigate should any of them be served up before me.
I had no worries - it was a risotto with orange lumps in it; although they were completely palatable orange lumps. I didn't ask what they were, but they were either parsnip or squash or turnip or one of those other slight odd vegetables that come in medley packs but get chucked in the bin. At least in our household.
The meal went down very well, as did the Rioja and a second bottle, a Cabernet Merlot. As ever with Sarah, the conversation flowed freely and without interruption and we laughed genuinely at each other's jibes and asides and jokes.
We moved back into the little room with the bookcase and small settee. Sarah asked what music I liked and I came up the non-committal "all kinds" (as I doubt her CD collection contained "Touch Me I'm Sick" by Mudhoney) which was a mistake as she pressed a few buttons and Lennon & McCartney came on introducing Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I can just about stick the Kinks from the forgotten sixties, but definitely not the bloody Beatles.
Quite swiftly the wine took full effect. The invasions of our personal spaces by each other became more pronounced until Sarah was virtually sat in my lap. Once John Lennon's nasal tones had spat out the final bars of A Day In The Life (and that pointless looped bit had come and gone), Sarah reached for my glass, put in gently down on the floor, then took my face and pushed our lips together. It was rather nice - or at least the long-forgotten dual-purpose appendage in my trousers thought so.
Things became a little confused for the next couple of hours. But they were very nice.
And Sarah fixed me eggs for breakfast.
Saturday 28 March 2009
Darn Sarf - Part I
I'd gotten into work at seven, after making sure the lads had enough food to last for the weekend. I'd hardly seen Colin all week, so I didn't make any provisions for him. He can look after himself. I left a twenty pound note in an envelope marked Andrew (the envelope, not the twenty pound note) as out of the three of them, I think I can count on him the most not to rush out of the front door when armored with a twenty and spend it immediately on frivolities. I wrote 'For Emergencies' on the envelope as well, and underlined it three times. Somehow, I can quite easily imagine at least one emergency arising over the weekend that will necessitate the spending of exactly £20.
Peter Handyman arrived at work around half eight so I gave him enough time for his first cup of coffee to take effect then cleared it with him that I was okay to leave at three as I was on my way down south for the weekend. I felt oddly nervous about asking him as despite him not being as fierce (at least to me) as the reputation that preceded him he still can be a little unpredictable. However he needs me in his good books at the moment as my new project starts on Monday and I have a week of intense data analysis to soldier through before my fortnight off and our trip to Germany. So he nodded and confirmed that would be okay, then asked if I was going anywhere nice. When I mentioned Southampton he guffawed and added: no, then. I said: Why, have you been? To which he nodded, then gave his opinion it was a pi$$-hole. Hey ho.
The day moved with predictable sloth-like swiftness. I remembered my resolution of joining the Friday lunchtime pub-throng but just was not in the mood (as I am still not drinking at present, plus I wasn't asked, anyway) so I didn't. Eventually I reached three o'clock without going completely ga-ga, grabbed my coat, ignored a couple of "on a half day, Bryn?" quips (which I think were made only half in jest) and left. Filled up the Focus's tank and was on my way down the M42.
My journey was all motorways because I like motorways. My dad refused to drive on motorways, making all our extended journeys - especially the ones to our bi-annual English sea-side holidays, loathsome and brain-bu66eringly tortuous. This meant that our holidays began at the bizarre time of 3am (the only day in the year I was ever aware that the powers that be had added another three o'clock to the clock) when me and Colin were wrenched screaming from our lovely warm beds and thrust into a freezing cold car. Sometimes it was fun watching the day warm up as we discovered tiny places that we'd never driven through before (although we were never allowed to explore them fully as dad refused to stop the car unless it was for petrol. And yes, that included toilet breaks. Woe was placed upon you should you express a need to relieve the pressure upon either your bladders or colons; and if you ever did you were told that you should have gone before the journey had commenced (which we had anyway). I don't think anything brought me and my brother closer together than those final hours sat in the back-seat of my father's Vauxhall Nova on our way to holiday, eying each others agony as we struggled to keep our kidneys from exploding or our anuses from prolapsing. Then would come the added pain when we finally reached our destination (usually a caravan) and we were actually allowed to whip out our knobs and vent high-pressure urine into the plastic toilet.
Only one person failed once, and it was me, and the punishment I received for colouring the crotch and entire upper part of my jeans a darker shade of blue was sadly memorable.
So I've always been a keen supporter and utiliser of the arteries of the UK's motorway system. To get to Southampton it was laughably simple. M42 to the M40 to the M4 to Southampton. I'd left early in the hope of missing the traffic around Birmingham and was largely successful, aside from one ten minute spell. I made expected progress until I got to the Reading region of the M4 when I experienced my one real snarl-up as millions of disparaged office-workers quit the Slough/Reading/Leatherhead area as quickly as feasibly all at the same time. I'd told Sarah I'd try and be at hers before seven, which began to look a tad unlikely, but eventually the traffic clog inexplicably cleared and I was bombing back down south.
Once I was off the M4 I seemed immediately to be in Southampton, although there seemed no sense I was anyway near the coast. Sarah had given me scant directions to hers - she said just follow the signs for St Mary's Stadium until you reach it then follow the signs to Portsmouth, turn left at Pizza Hut then it's your second right. This proved more difficult than it should have done and I came across Sarah's road purely by luck.
I hadn't done bad at all, as it was barely ten past seven. I knocked on Sarah's door, which opened with Sarah standing behind it. She made a huge show of being delighted to see me, reaching forwards with a eye-scorching smile and kissing me on lips. I can't remember that last time a woman kissed me on the lips - how sad is that?
She ushered me in and took my coat and told me Ruth was at her sisters and that dinner would be twenty minutes. I offered to help but she told me that wouldn't be necessary and that I could help myself to wine, which (chucking aside my Lent prohibition) I did.
I shall continue this tomorrow. For reasons which may become clear.
Peter Handyman arrived at work around half eight so I gave him enough time for his first cup of coffee to take effect then cleared it with him that I was okay to leave at three as I was on my way down south for the weekend. I felt oddly nervous about asking him as despite him not being as fierce (at least to me) as the reputation that preceded him he still can be a little unpredictable. However he needs me in his good books at the moment as my new project starts on Monday and I have a week of intense data analysis to soldier through before my fortnight off and our trip to Germany. So he nodded and confirmed that would be okay, then asked if I was going anywhere nice. When I mentioned Southampton he guffawed and added: no, then. I said: Why, have you been? To which he nodded, then gave his opinion it was a pi$$-hole. Hey ho.
The day moved with predictable sloth-like swiftness. I remembered my resolution of joining the Friday lunchtime pub-throng but just was not in the mood (as I am still not drinking at present, plus I wasn't asked, anyway) so I didn't. Eventually I reached three o'clock without going completely ga-ga, grabbed my coat, ignored a couple of "on a half day, Bryn?" quips (which I think were made only half in jest) and left. Filled up the Focus's tank and was on my way down the M42.
My journey was all motorways because I like motorways. My dad refused to drive on motorways, making all our extended journeys - especially the ones to our bi-annual English sea-side holidays, loathsome and brain-bu66eringly tortuous. This meant that our holidays began at the bizarre time of 3am (the only day in the year I was ever aware that the powers that be had added another three o'clock to the clock) when me and Colin were wrenched screaming from our lovely warm beds and thrust into a freezing cold car. Sometimes it was fun watching the day warm up as we discovered tiny places that we'd never driven through before (although we were never allowed to explore them fully as dad refused to stop the car unless it was for petrol. And yes, that included toilet breaks. Woe was placed upon you should you express a need to relieve the pressure upon either your bladders or colons; and if you ever did you were told that you should have gone before the journey had commenced (which we had anyway). I don't think anything brought me and my brother closer together than those final hours sat in the back-seat of my father's Vauxhall Nova on our way to holiday, eying each others agony as we struggled to keep our kidneys from exploding or our anuses from prolapsing. Then would come the added pain when we finally reached our destination (usually a caravan) and we were actually allowed to whip out our knobs and vent high-pressure urine into the plastic toilet.
Only one person failed once, and it was me, and the punishment I received for colouring the crotch and entire upper part of my jeans a darker shade of blue was sadly memorable.
So I've always been a keen supporter and utiliser of the arteries of the UK's motorway system. To get to Southampton it was laughably simple. M42 to the M40 to the M4 to Southampton. I'd left early in the hope of missing the traffic around Birmingham and was largely successful, aside from one ten minute spell. I made expected progress until I got to the Reading region of the M4 when I experienced my one real snarl-up as millions of disparaged office-workers quit the Slough/Reading/Leatherhead area as quickly as feasibly all at the same time. I'd told Sarah I'd try and be at hers before seven, which began to look a tad unlikely, but eventually the traffic clog inexplicably cleared and I was bombing back down south.
Once I was off the M4 I seemed immediately to be in Southampton, although there seemed no sense I was anyway near the coast. Sarah had given me scant directions to hers - she said just follow the signs for St Mary's Stadium until you reach it then follow the signs to Portsmouth, turn left at Pizza Hut then it's your second right. This proved more difficult than it should have done and I came across Sarah's road purely by luck.
I hadn't done bad at all, as it was barely ten past seven. I knocked on Sarah's door, which opened with Sarah standing behind it. She made a huge show of being delighted to see me, reaching forwards with a eye-scorching smile and kissing me on lips. I can't remember that last time a woman kissed me on the lips - how sad is that?
She ushered me in and took my coat and told me Ruth was at her sisters and that dinner would be twenty minutes. I offered to help but she told me that wouldn't be necessary and that I could help myself to wine, which (chucking aside my Lent prohibition) I did.
I shall continue this tomorrow. For reasons which may become clear.
Friday 27 March 2009
Is This The Way To Southampton?
Last night was the first time I'd had to referee the Thursday Night Conundrum, which is thus:
[A] Gabriel at Martial Arts 6pm-7pm, 20 mile round trip heading north
[B] Lukas at Basketball 6.30pm-7.30pm, 20 mile round trip heading south
This has never been an issue before, as Gabriel has only taken up martial arts at the behest of his re-united lovely AFTER Lukas suffered his now-healed broken arm which has caused his realitively lengthy absence from the basketball court. So the timings have never clashed and they didn't clash last week as Gabriel was estranged from Lian and didn't feel like going.
So there's the quandary. As far as I am concerned, I am keen to take Lukas to basketball as there is a sport I can at least watch and I do enjoy watching him play. But I am also keen for Gabriel to continue with his Martial Arts as it's the only non-school physical activity he indulges in and it's given him a notable if slight improvement in both his physical appearance and general levels of confidence and contentedness.
My only thoughts to this solution were to persuade Colin to escort Gabriel to the academy via the bus (I still consider Gabriel at fourteen and a week too young to be using public transport on his lonesome) whilst I drove Lukas to the leisure centre. This depended wholly upon Colin, who's attendance at home seems to be continually erratic (not that it's any of my business as he's a big boy), and his willingness to spend half-an-hour on the bus, then a further hour doing whatever he could do to find to pass the time, then another half-an-hour home. I had my doubts.
However, in the event (and not at all guided by Colin not being present) my solution was notably different. I took neither of them.
I'd wondered how the pair of them would tackle their need for transport, as I have been spending the week childishly but satisfactorily provided nothing for them other than a roof over their heads. After my outburst the previous evening I'd spent a good couple of hours in my bedroom watching stuff on the TV that succeeded in turning my brain to mush. When I came downstairs again the pair of them were routinely shooting each other via Call of Duty on the PS2. They pretended not to notice me, even when I stepped in front of the TV just as Lukas was about to relieve Gabriel of his head (which normally would have caused extensive howls of protest and dismay). I ended up in the kitchen, made myself a sandwich, flicked through Total Film and read articles on Starship Troopers and Walter Herzog, then returned upstairs and watched a documentary on pushy parents who have precious, sporty children (all of whom were portrayed in a probably deliberate slightly unhealthfully-obsessed manner). Thus ended my evening.
Back home after work it was another foot in the door moment as Lukas jumped on me; he'd obviously deduced his chances of winning in the Gabe/Lukas transportation battle would be increased if he stuck his oar in first. He asked (albeit slightly nervously) if I would be taking him to basketball this evening. I said that I was not (okay, so I was STILL in a bloody-minded mood). He asked me why, and I said because (a) I didn't feel like it (and I didn't, for several reasons, mainly that I have not been sleeping well of late and (b) I had better things to do with my time. Lukas just gave me a look that mingled disappointment with hurtfulness and scampered off.
Gabriel was next down, his expression one of concern that as Lukas had gotten in first he might have swayed me in my dad-taxi tendencies. He asked me which of him and Lukas I was taking out tonight. I said neither. He said why not. I repeated the reply I offered Lukas. I got the same expression except with Gabe the hurtfulness was clearly more evident.
If I was much more of a hard-hearted bar-steward I'd be enjoying this. But I'm not, and I intend to recommence things with a clean slate once the weekend is over; if the kids'll let me. I know I am teaching them a lesson by hitting in the face with the blackboard, but sometimes subtlety is not the most desirable policy. Especially when it comes to teenagers.
Andrew came down later to rummage around the fridge and told me that I was being an utter @rsehole and should jack it in. I replied that I knew very well that I was being an utter @rsehole but that was the whole point. Andrew asked if that made me proud. I said I'd abandoned any notion of pride a long time ago. Andrew said with the supercilious tone of his - well that's quite evident, then returned back upstairs.
I wish I cared a bit more, but currently, I don't. I realise in many ways this behaviour is quite out of character for me, but it's the way I currently feel. As I said, I am tired.
But not tired enough to consider abandoning my plans of driving down to Southampton and spending an hour or two or a day or two with Sarah (hopefully the latter). I've packed a very small suitcase of my nicer clothes and cheap toiletries. And I'm taking a condom. More in hope than in expectation, of course.
Even if nothing happens; if it ends whatever tentative relationship I currently have with Sarah; it'll do me good to get out of my familiar environment, and away from my house, and away from the boys.
Jesus - I'm actually looking forwards to something!
[A] Gabriel at Martial Arts 6pm-7pm, 20 mile round trip heading north
[B] Lukas at Basketball 6.30pm-7.30pm, 20 mile round trip heading south
This has never been an issue before, as Gabriel has only taken up martial arts at the behest of his re-united lovely AFTER Lukas suffered his now-healed broken arm which has caused his realitively lengthy absence from the basketball court. So the timings have never clashed and they didn't clash last week as Gabriel was estranged from Lian and didn't feel like going.
So there's the quandary. As far as I am concerned, I am keen to take Lukas to basketball as there is a sport I can at least watch and I do enjoy watching him play. But I am also keen for Gabriel to continue with his Martial Arts as it's the only non-school physical activity he indulges in and it's given him a notable if slight improvement in both his physical appearance and general levels of confidence and contentedness.
My only thoughts to this solution were to persuade Colin to escort Gabriel to the academy via the bus (I still consider Gabriel at fourteen and a week too young to be using public transport on his lonesome) whilst I drove Lukas to the leisure centre. This depended wholly upon Colin, who's attendance at home seems to be continually erratic (not that it's any of my business as he's a big boy), and his willingness to spend half-an-hour on the bus, then a further hour doing whatever he could do to find to pass the time, then another half-an-hour home. I had my doubts.
However, in the event (and not at all guided by Colin not being present) my solution was notably different. I took neither of them.
I'd wondered how the pair of them would tackle their need for transport, as I have been spending the week childishly but satisfactorily provided nothing for them other than a roof over their heads. After my outburst the previous evening I'd spent a good couple of hours in my bedroom watching stuff on the TV that succeeded in turning my brain to mush. When I came downstairs again the pair of them were routinely shooting each other via Call of Duty on the PS2. They pretended not to notice me, even when I stepped in front of the TV just as Lukas was about to relieve Gabriel of his head (which normally would have caused extensive howls of protest and dismay). I ended up in the kitchen, made myself a sandwich, flicked through Total Film and read articles on Starship Troopers and Walter Herzog, then returned upstairs and watched a documentary on pushy parents who have precious, sporty children (all of whom were portrayed in a probably deliberate slightly unhealthfully-obsessed manner). Thus ended my evening.
Back home after work it was another foot in the door moment as Lukas jumped on me; he'd obviously deduced his chances of winning in the Gabe/Lukas transportation battle would be increased if he stuck his oar in first. He asked (albeit slightly nervously) if I would be taking him to basketball this evening. I said that I was not (okay, so I was STILL in a bloody-minded mood). He asked me why, and I said because (a) I didn't feel like it (and I didn't, for several reasons, mainly that I have not been sleeping well of late and (b) I had better things to do with my time. Lukas just gave me a look that mingled disappointment with hurtfulness and scampered off.
Gabriel was next down, his expression one of concern that as Lukas had gotten in first he might have swayed me in my dad-taxi tendencies. He asked me which of him and Lukas I was taking out tonight. I said neither. He said why not. I repeated the reply I offered Lukas. I got the same expression except with Gabe the hurtfulness was clearly more evident.
If I was much more of a hard-hearted bar-steward I'd be enjoying this. But I'm not, and I intend to recommence things with a clean slate once the weekend is over; if the kids'll let me. I know I am teaching them a lesson by hitting in the face with the blackboard, but sometimes subtlety is not the most desirable policy. Especially when it comes to teenagers.
Andrew came down later to rummage around the fridge and told me that I was being an utter @rsehole and should jack it in. I replied that I knew very well that I was being an utter @rsehole but that was the whole point. Andrew asked if that made me proud. I said I'd abandoned any notion of pride a long time ago. Andrew said with the supercilious tone of his - well that's quite evident, then returned back upstairs.
I wish I cared a bit more, but currently, I don't. I realise in many ways this behaviour is quite out of character for me, but it's the way I currently feel. As I said, I am tired.
But not tired enough to consider abandoning my plans of driving down to Southampton and spending an hour or two or a day or two with Sarah (hopefully the latter). I've packed a very small suitcase of my nicer clothes and cheap toiletries. And I'm taking a condom. More in hope than in expectation, of course.
Even if nothing happens; if it ends whatever tentative relationship I currently have with Sarah; it'll do me good to get out of my familiar environment, and away from my house, and away from the boys.
Jesus - I'm actually looking forwards to something!
Thursday 26 March 2009
Timber
They're tumbling like dominoes now - the relationships I have with my children that is. I think I've done well to maintain them to at least healthy levels for longer than most parent-offspring relationships manage; but then our situation has been less than normal for almost a decade.
Now I am back in Andrew's blank books I did wonder how Gabriel and Lukas would react. Despite them being three of them I seldom have to deal with situations where two of them will gang up against the ostracised one. Conversely, we very rarely suffer situations where Child A is at loggerheads with Child B (whilst Child C watches with interest from the sideline, of course). The only times I can recall significant teaming is Andrew and Lukas ganging up very slightly against Gabriel, but on each occassion it was Gabe who was to blame for this.
I'd not exactly had a stick-it-on-a-postcard day at work. Out of the blue I'd been invited to a "Rewards Lunch" - which turned out to be a collection of sandwiches, savouries and other mouth-morsels in one of the conference rooms with the senior management team in attendance, each of whom ignored us mere plebians and mouthed in secret code to each other whilst tapping into their blackberries. Watching them saunter about, dressed in identical sombre suits, white shirts and company ties, reminded me of a group of a nervous pack animals which - if the rumours are to be believed - is a uniquely apt comparison as some of them are definitely for the chop.
Anyhow, here's the rub: This Rewards Lunch is an annual event, and is usually a luxurious event at some posh eaterie where dinner suits and dickie-bows are very much the order of the day. This is the first time I'd ever been nominated for one - and of course, with the current roller-coaster fiscal environment, they was no way my company was going to risk the threat of wasting money on self-congratulatory dinners. So I got a half-an-hour freebie lunch in a meeting room.
Still, I set out on proving that there is such a thing as a free lunch by gobbling down as much in the way of freebies as I could get my fingers on. It would save me the bother of not preparing any lunch for my sons or Colin once I was home. The sandwiches were very uninspirational but the mini Scotch eggs and pork pies found particular favour with my gullet. And we were allowed a glass or two of Asti Spumante, which I should not have done as I spent the afternoon fighting to keep my eyelids from meeting in the middle.
Came home to be greeted by a half-hearted hi from Lukas who'd pre-empted my lack of culianry willingness and was tucking into beans-on-toast, and a thunder of footsteps as one of my remaining sons seemed to tumble down the stairs. I braced myself in case Andrew suddenly exploded into the kitchen wielding a mace, but instead it was Gabriel wielding a expression of intense delight.
Gabriel yelled at me: Guess what dad! (and before I'd even had chance to formulate the mere inklings of a guess) Me and Lian are back together!
This is cruel of me, I know, but I just shrugged my shoulders and said: So?
Gabriel popped and went whizzing around the kitchen before deflating back down to the floor. He looked as if I'd just told him I'd reported Lian's family to the authorities as illegal immigrants and they were being deported back to Myanmar. He said: I thought you'd be pleased for me.
Yes, Gabriel, I said. I'm pleased for you. I'm happy for you, I'm ecstatic for you. It's taking me everything ounce of my willpower not to rip off all my clothes and go dancing down the street naked whilst singing "Gabe and Lian are back together, la-di-da-di-dah" - that's how happy I am for you.
Lukas chipped in. Why are you acting like such an @rsehole, dad, he asked. You've been acting like an @rsehole for a few days now. It's getting a bit boring, now.
So in defence, I said that if I am acting like an arsehole I think I have a very valid reason to, especially when one of my sons seems to expect me to take a keen interest in his relationship when not one of you apparently give you a toss about mine.
Lukas and Gabriel exchanged puzzled looks. After a moment, Gabriel said: Is this about that woman you keep phoning?
I laughed - as this was just so funny.
No, Gabe, I said. This is about my wife. This is about your mother. You know, that woman you've quite evidently forgotten. I just wanted us to spend a few moments in remembering her on Sunday, and not one of you could be @rsed to come with me. I didn't think it was too much to ask, yet apparantly it was.
But you haven't mentioned mum for years, said Lukas. How comes she's suddenly so important now?
I said just because I never mention her, doesn't mean I've completely forgotten her. And she's not so suddenly important. She's always been important. She just happens to be dead. She's certainly important enough for us to spend an hour or so together as a family in rememberance of her, even if it's just once a year.
Then Lukas said if mum is so important, how come you're after some other woman?
Seldom have I gone from simmering to boiling over so swiftly.
I said: Because I'm f*cking lonely, Lukas. All I've got is you three and I don't know if you've noticed but there's a bit of an age gap here. And you're all building your own lives now and soon you're all going to f*ck off and forget about me and I'm going to be a sad, fat bloke in a house with more rooms than he needs. You really think I'm going to let that happen?
Lukas and Gabriel looked at me, dumbstruck and blinking. I didn't feel like seeing their faces any longer so I went to hide upstairs.
Now I am back in Andrew's blank books I did wonder how Gabriel and Lukas would react. Despite them being three of them I seldom have to deal with situations where two of them will gang up against the ostracised one. Conversely, we very rarely suffer situations where Child A is at loggerheads with Child B (whilst Child C watches with interest from the sideline, of course). The only times I can recall significant teaming is Andrew and Lukas ganging up very slightly against Gabriel, but on each occassion it was Gabe who was to blame for this.
I'd not exactly had a stick-it-on-a-postcard day at work. Out of the blue I'd been invited to a "Rewards Lunch" - which turned out to be a collection of sandwiches, savouries and other mouth-morsels in one of the conference rooms with the senior management team in attendance, each of whom ignored us mere plebians and mouthed in secret code to each other whilst tapping into their blackberries. Watching them saunter about, dressed in identical sombre suits, white shirts and company ties, reminded me of a group of a nervous pack animals which - if the rumours are to be believed - is a uniquely apt comparison as some of them are definitely for the chop.
Anyhow, here's the rub: This Rewards Lunch is an annual event, and is usually a luxurious event at some posh eaterie where dinner suits and dickie-bows are very much the order of the day. This is the first time I'd ever been nominated for one - and of course, with the current roller-coaster fiscal environment, they was no way my company was going to risk the threat of wasting money on self-congratulatory dinners. So I got a half-an-hour freebie lunch in a meeting room.
Still, I set out on proving that there is such a thing as a free lunch by gobbling down as much in the way of freebies as I could get my fingers on. It would save me the bother of not preparing any lunch for my sons or Colin once I was home. The sandwiches were very uninspirational but the mini Scotch eggs and pork pies found particular favour with my gullet. And we were allowed a glass or two of Asti Spumante, which I should not have done as I spent the afternoon fighting to keep my eyelids from meeting in the middle.
Came home to be greeted by a half-hearted hi from Lukas who'd pre-empted my lack of culianry willingness and was tucking into beans-on-toast, and a thunder of footsteps as one of my remaining sons seemed to tumble down the stairs. I braced myself in case Andrew suddenly exploded into the kitchen wielding a mace, but instead it was Gabriel wielding a expression of intense delight.
Gabriel yelled at me: Guess what dad! (and before I'd even had chance to formulate the mere inklings of a guess) Me and Lian are back together!
This is cruel of me, I know, but I just shrugged my shoulders and said: So?
Gabriel popped and went whizzing around the kitchen before deflating back down to the floor. He looked as if I'd just told him I'd reported Lian's family to the authorities as illegal immigrants and they were being deported back to Myanmar. He said: I thought you'd be pleased for me.
Yes, Gabriel, I said. I'm pleased for you. I'm happy for you, I'm ecstatic for you. It's taking me everything ounce of my willpower not to rip off all my clothes and go dancing down the street naked whilst singing "Gabe and Lian are back together, la-di-da-di-dah" - that's how happy I am for you.
Lukas chipped in. Why are you acting like such an @rsehole, dad, he asked. You've been acting like an @rsehole for a few days now. It's getting a bit boring, now.
So in defence, I said that if I am acting like an arsehole I think I have a very valid reason to, especially when one of my sons seems to expect me to take a keen interest in his relationship when not one of you apparently give you a toss about mine.
Lukas and Gabriel exchanged puzzled looks. After a moment, Gabriel said: Is this about that woman you keep phoning?
I laughed - as this was just so funny.
No, Gabe, I said. This is about my wife. This is about your mother. You know, that woman you've quite evidently forgotten. I just wanted us to spend a few moments in remembering her on Sunday, and not one of you could be @rsed to come with me. I didn't think it was too much to ask, yet apparantly it was.
But you haven't mentioned mum for years, said Lukas. How comes she's suddenly so important now?
I said just because I never mention her, doesn't mean I've completely forgotten her. And she's not so suddenly important. She's always been important. She just happens to be dead. She's certainly important enough for us to spend an hour or so together as a family in rememberance of her, even if it's just once a year.
Then Lukas said if mum is so important, how come you're after some other woman?
Seldom have I gone from simmering to boiling over so swiftly.
I said: Because I'm f*cking lonely, Lukas. All I've got is you three and I don't know if you've noticed but there's a bit of an age gap here. And you're all building your own lives now and soon you're all going to f*ck off and forget about me and I'm going to be a sad, fat bloke in a house with more rooms than he needs. You really think I'm going to let that happen?
Lukas and Gabriel looked at me, dumbstruck and blinking. I didn't feel like seeing their faces any longer so I went to hide upstairs.
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Let Me At That Bull
Inevitably, it all came to a head, and last night was the time and the kitchen was the place. Maybe it's the mood I have been in since Sunday, but I was itching for a fight, or at least someone I could lump my tension upon, so when the opportunity arose I grabbed it and reeled it in.
After another reasonably uneventful and uninteresting day at work, I came home to find the kitchen trashed - well not trashed exactly, but not one of my sons had made any effort to clear up after they'd all prepared (it seemed) individual meals, each with at least two dozen ingredients, with each ingredient used but (if not completely used) not rehoused in either the fridge or the cupboard or wherever said ingredient originated from (and not from Tescos Online). I could have screamed and bawled and stamped my feet like someone trying to put out a linoleum fire but I felt too dog-tired and defeated. Instead I gathered up the post which has been liberally tossed across the kitchen table (at least someone had fetched it in from beneath the letterbox) and perused it.
There were three letters. One was to the former resident of the house, but looked like a circular, so I just ripped it up and tossed it into the re-cycling. The second was to me, and was a reminder that was subscription to Total Film was up, and if I cared to renew I would receive a box-set of three Stanley Kubrick films (A Clockwork Orange, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket) I already possess. The third was to ... Poppy.
No - no it wasn't. It was to me. It's just that a raindrop or two had splattered down on the poorly-printed envelope, and had merged some of the letters together. "Mr" had acquired a little squiggle that turned it into something just about halfway towards a "Mrs", and the bottom half of the "B" of my initial had been obliterated so it had become a very poor "P". If you looked hard enough, you could just have mistaken this as a letter for a "Mrs P" and not "Mr B".
I felt like a sit down so I had one. I looked about the kitchen, and started feeling crushingly alone. All I had in companionship was the steady, metronomic tick of the clock, and the pulsing and rhythmic throbbing of the fridge. Oh, and a the odd bump from upstairs signalling the teenage occupants of the second floor of my house.
Then I shot up out of the chair and was punching Sarah's number into the phone before I really had chance to get my head around what I was doing. I put the receiver to my ear, adopting the stance I'd assume a businessman would adopt when making a really important call that would guarantee him a seven hundred thousand grand a year pension for life even if every turd started hitting the fan.
Sarah answered, and I said with polite energy that it was Bryn, and diving straight into the converation I advised her that as I had I had no other plans for this weekend, would she be interested in me coming down to see her in Southampton?
There was a slight pause. Then Sarah said: Are you sure? It's a long way down here you know. And it's not the nicest car journey in the world.
So I told her Southampton was not exactly Beijing, and I'm sure I could amply stomach an hour or three of vehicular perambulation if it meant I could get to see her. Sarah seemed a little taken aback at this (for no reason I could readily understand), but then said with suitable chripiness that if I didn't mind the trip then she'd of course be more than willing to see me. When and where?
I said it'd probably be best for me if I nipped off earlier than usual from work then bombed down the M1 and got down there as soon as I could. As to the where, as I didn't know Southampton at all, that'd be up to her.
So Sarah said: I'll tell you what, as you're going to tired out after all that driving, I'll cook a meal, how does that sound? I said it sounded perfect; then hastened to end the call before the risque topic of my accomodation for the evening arose.
I put the phone down in infinitely better spirits than with which I had picked it up.
Such warm spirits lasted a few bare seconds before Andrew came down and asked if I'd seen his thin, dark green jumper as he couldn't find it anywhere. This was the opportunity I'd been waiting for - I said that I didn't know where it was, had he forgotten where he had taken it off? For someone so bright - I added - you seem to be very forgetful these days.
Andrew knew immediately where this was leading and what words said underneath the words I had actually spoken. He said (and I think, a little unbelievably) that he didn't want to talk about what obviously I wanted to talk about, so if we could both just left things unsaid and got back to normality it'd be probably best for all concerned.
So I called Andrew an arrogant little $hit and yelled a few other things around the selfishness of his attitude. I then got called selfish for the way I'd behaved over the past couple of days. So I countered by saying I think I deserved a couple of days off from never acting thinking about myself, which Andrew just laughed at and said: When do *you* ever think about anyone else but yourself?
I really felt like hitting him, but I refrained myself. The logical Andrew; such an unlogical mind when it suits him. So I asked if I was thinking about myself when I allowed Kevin to move in the house? Then I asked if I was thinking about myself when I didn't create a stink upon being portrayed as a violent, drunken father so Andrew could draw close to Mr Aldridge?
Andrew just gave me a killing look, then walked soundlessly away.
I was breathing heavily, but felt the best I had felt for several days.
After another reasonably uneventful and uninteresting day at work, I came home to find the kitchen trashed - well not trashed exactly, but not one of my sons had made any effort to clear up after they'd all prepared (it seemed) individual meals, each with at least two dozen ingredients, with each ingredient used but (if not completely used) not rehoused in either the fridge or the cupboard or wherever said ingredient originated from (and not from Tescos Online). I could have screamed and bawled and stamped my feet like someone trying to put out a linoleum fire but I felt too dog-tired and defeated. Instead I gathered up the post which has been liberally tossed across the kitchen table (at least someone had fetched it in from beneath the letterbox) and perused it.
There were three letters. One was to the former resident of the house, but looked like a circular, so I just ripped it up and tossed it into the re-cycling. The second was to me, and was a reminder that was subscription to Total Film was up, and if I cared to renew I would receive a box-set of three Stanley Kubrick films (A Clockwork Orange, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Full Metal Jacket) I already possess. The third was to ... Poppy.
No - no it wasn't. It was to me. It's just that a raindrop or two had splattered down on the poorly-printed envelope, and had merged some of the letters together. "Mr" had acquired a little squiggle that turned it into something just about halfway towards a "Mrs", and the bottom half of the "B" of my initial had been obliterated so it had become a very poor "P". If you looked hard enough, you could just have mistaken this as a letter for a "Mrs P" and not "Mr B".
I felt like a sit down so I had one. I looked about the kitchen, and started feeling crushingly alone. All I had in companionship was the steady, metronomic tick of the clock, and the pulsing and rhythmic throbbing of the fridge. Oh, and a the odd bump from upstairs signalling the teenage occupants of the second floor of my house.
Then I shot up out of the chair and was punching Sarah's number into the phone before I really had chance to get my head around what I was doing. I put the receiver to my ear, adopting the stance I'd assume a businessman would adopt when making a really important call that would guarantee him a seven hundred thousand grand a year pension for life even if every turd started hitting the fan.
Sarah answered, and I said with polite energy that it was Bryn, and diving straight into the converation I advised her that as I had I had no other plans for this weekend, would she be interested in me coming down to see her in Southampton?
There was a slight pause. Then Sarah said: Are you sure? It's a long way down here you know. And it's not the nicest car journey in the world.
So I told her Southampton was not exactly Beijing, and I'm sure I could amply stomach an hour or three of vehicular perambulation if it meant I could get to see her. Sarah seemed a little taken aback at this (for no reason I could readily understand), but then said with suitable chripiness that if I didn't mind the trip then she'd of course be more than willing to see me. When and where?
I said it'd probably be best for me if I nipped off earlier than usual from work then bombed down the M1 and got down there as soon as I could. As to the where, as I didn't know Southampton at all, that'd be up to her.
So Sarah said: I'll tell you what, as you're going to tired out after all that driving, I'll cook a meal, how does that sound? I said it sounded perfect; then hastened to end the call before the risque topic of my accomodation for the evening arose.
I put the phone down in infinitely better spirits than with which I had picked it up.
Such warm spirits lasted a few bare seconds before Andrew came down and asked if I'd seen his thin, dark green jumper as he couldn't find it anywhere. This was the opportunity I'd been waiting for - I said that I didn't know where it was, had he forgotten where he had taken it off? For someone so bright - I added - you seem to be very forgetful these days.
Andrew knew immediately where this was leading and what words said underneath the words I had actually spoken. He said (and I think, a little unbelievably) that he didn't want to talk about what obviously I wanted to talk about, so if we could both just left things unsaid and got back to normality it'd be probably best for all concerned.
So I called Andrew an arrogant little $hit and yelled a few other things around the selfishness of his attitude. I then got called selfish for the way I'd behaved over the past couple of days. So I countered by saying I think I deserved a couple of days off from never acting thinking about myself, which Andrew just laughed at and said: When do *you* ever think about anyone else but yourself?
I really felt like hitting him, but I refrained myself. The logical Andrew; such an unlogical mind when it suits him. So I asked if I was thinking about myself when I allowed Kevin to move in the house? Then I asked if I was thinking about myself when I didn't create a stink upon being portrayed as a violent, drunken father so Andrew could draw close to Mr Aldridge?
Andrew just gave me a killing look, then walked soundlessly away.
I was breathing heavily, but felt the best I had felt for several days.
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Annoyances
So, once again my house has become not a pleasant place to be. I feel I have been really let down by my boys; I just wanted them to waste a couple of hours of their time in memory of the woman who at least gave birth to them (so what if she also gave death to them?). But as it turns out they had better things to do all day, and could not re-arrange their schedules. More important things got in the way, like spending hours on an essay that ought to have been polished off in barely a few minutes, or pining over a former girlfriend, or killing shadowy shapes on the PS2.
I seemed to have adopted an Andrew approach, becoming withdrawn and uncommuniative. This is not a deliberate tactic, it's just the way my emotions and feelings are decreeing me to act. I'm hurt and upset.
Communication happens by the interuption or the non-occurance of usual routines. When the tradition hour for Sunday Lunch came and went, and I didn't fill the kitchen with enticing odours, instead slapping a steak on the George Formby along with some onions and mushrooms and making me and only me a steak sandwich, the boys trickled down one by one and silently found things to eat from the fridge and the cupboards before noiselessly returning to their rooms.
They know they've done wrong, that much is evident. And they know I am in the right. I wonder how long they're going to keep dealing with it in this manner? What happens when the food runs out and the need for money runs in?
They had a responsibility to remember their mother and (as Colin bludgeoned home) a responsibilty to me to help me remember my wife before all those neural pathways degrade and Poppy slips out of my mind. If they can't live up to such a minor responsibility then why should I live up to a single one of the responsibilities I have towards them? That seems like a fair and equitable deal to me.
Already I know Lukas had to do P.E. with a dirty kit yesterday. I doubt he got much of a ribbing as such things mean little to twelve-year-old boys, but I at least hope it felt uncomfortable for him. The devilish part of me cannot wait until he runs out of clean underwear; although with the Lukas mindset this may not occur for several weeks.
Andrew will be the first to break, of that I'm sure. And he'll break by scoulding me for not living up to my parental duties, of that I'm equally sure. This will be the catalyst for an intense discussion about a frenzied number of subjects leaving me the victim of disparaging looks and a prolonged period of the cold shoulder. Heck, I can live with this.
Only Gabriel do I feel slightly sorry for. This could not have come at a worse time for him, with him still smarting over the loss of Lian. Not sure on the latest news of course but I am sure I could have perceived by his manner if a reconciliation had occurred. And from his manner I judge it to have occurred not, so obviously he hasn't taken any notice of my suggested he gets his apology in. If we were on speaking terms I would now be pushing him, telling him how easily girls of this age bounce from partner to partner, to act quickly so not to lose Lian to some other spotty adolescent. But I'm shirking my responsilibities, so it is his look out. Whenever I see him around the house though, it does break my heart a little as he looks like such a lost little boy.
Condequently by adopting this emotional stance lots of things are annoying me that really ought not to be annoying me. Ripley's habit of digging her claws into the settee and pulling herself along the laminate flooring is becoming annoying rather than cute, as practically-speaking it simply depletes the longevity of our furniture; in addition there's her continuing reluctance to perform her defecation outside rather than overnight in her litter tray. Maybe that's what becomes of enter the world during the winter months; one acquires one's habits based on the conditions of your formuative moments. Whatever, we have a kitty who possesses a great reluctance to ever venture outside and shake a paw with the burgeoning spring.
Colin annoys me, as he remains in my house and on my sofa, unemployed and seemingly unenthusiastic about anything, aside from his evening expeditions, of which I do not truly believe their truthfulness. I can't kick him out as yet (and I apologise if this seems appallingly selfish of me) as he's (hopefully) organised our little trip to Germany in about eleven days. Part of me hopes for a reconcilliation between him and Maria, or that the re-entry into his life of his little girls may spark some feelings of doubt that he's following the correct path (not that there have been many signs of that so far).
His days are numbered, anyhow. I've enjoyed having him around to a certain extent but this is a house (just) designed for four people, not five. Once we have returned from Germany my foot cometh downeth.
And then there's Sarah, the woman who prefers watching non-celebrities dancing amateurishly on ice to speaking to me. The woman who's hinted she'd be at least willing maybe to pursue at least the idea of a potential relationship between us, but then uses the excuse of one hundred and fifty miles of crow's flight to stop any possible connection from flowing freely. Maybe I need to get down to Southampton and see - if anywhere - this thing is going.
Hey, that's not such a bad idea, even if it is Southampton. My frosty-atmosphered house is not in Southamption, which is one thing that makes it not a bad idea, anyway. I could do with some time away from ... here.
I seemed to have adopted an Andrew approach, becoming withdrawn and uncommuniative. This is not a deliberate tactic, it's just the way my emotions and feelings are decreeing me to act. I'm hurt and upset.
Communication happens by the interuption or the non-occurance of usual routines. When the tradition hour for Sunday Lunch came and went, and I didn't fill the kitchen with enticing odours, instead slapping a steak on the George Formby along with some onions and mushrooms and making me and only me a steak sandwich, the boys trickled down one by one and silently found things to eat from the fridge and the cupboards before noiselessly returning to their rooms.
They know they've done wrong, that much is evident. And they know I am in the right. I wonder how long they're going to keep dealing with it in this manner? What happens when the food runs out and the need for money runs in?
They had a responsibility to remember their mother and (as Colin bludgeoned home) a responsibilty to me to help me remember my wife before all those neural pathways degrade and Poppy slips out of my mind. If they can't live up to such a minor responsibility then why should I live up to a single one of the responsibilities I have towards them? That seems like a fair and equitable deal to me.
Already I know Lukas had to do P.E. with a dirty kit yesterday. I doubt he got much of a ribbing as such things mean little to twelve-year-old boys, but I at least hope it felt uncomfortable for him. The devilish part of me cannot wait until he runs out of clean underwear; although with the Lukas mindset this may not occur for several weeks.
Andrew will be the first to break, of that I'm sure. And he'll break by scoulding me for not living up to my parental duties, of that I'm equally sure. This will be the catalyst for an intense discussion about a frenzied number of subjects leaving me the victim of disparaging looks and a prolonged period of the cold shoulder. Heck, I can live with this.
Only Gabriel do I feel slightly sorry for. This could not have come at a worse time for him, with him still smarting over the loss of Lian. Not sure on the latest news of course but I am sure I could have perceived by his manner if a reconciliation had occurred. And from his manner I judge it to have occurred not, so obviously he hasn't taken any notice of my suggested he gets his apology in. If we were on speaking terms I would now be pushing him, telling him how easily girls of this age bounce from partner to partner, to act quickly so not to lose Lian to some other spotty adolescent. But I'm shirking my responsilibities, so it is his look out. Whenever I see him around the house though, it does break my heart a little as he looks like such a lost little boy.
Condequently by adopting this emotional stance lots of things are annoying me that really ought not to be annoying me. Ripley's habit of digging her claws into the settee and pulling herself along the laminate flooring is becoming annoying rather than cute, as practically-speaking it simply depletes the longevity of our furniture; in addition there's her continuing reluctance to perform her defecation outside rather than overnight in her litter tray. Maybe that's what becomes of enter the world during the winter months; one acquires one's habits based on the conditions of your formuative moments. Whatever, we have a kitty who possesses a great reluctance to ever venture outside and shake a paw with the burgeoning spring.
Colin annoys me, as he remains in my house and on my sofa, unemployed and seemingly unenthusiastic about anything, aside from his evening expeditions, of which I do not truly believe their truthfulness. I can't kick him out as yet (and I apologise if this seems appallingly selfish of me) as he's (hopefully) organised our little trip to Germany in about eleven days. Part of me hopes for a reconcilliation between him and Maria, or that the re-entry into his life of his little girls may spark some feelings of doubt that he's following the correct path (not that there have been many signs of that so far).
His days are numbered, anyhow. I've enjoyed having him around to a certain extent but this is a house (just) designed for four people, not five. Once we have returned from Germany my foot cometh downeth.
And then there's Sarah, the woman who prefers watching non-celebrities dancing amateurishly on ice to speaking to me. The woman who's hinted she'd be at least willing maybe to pursue at least the idea of a potential relationship between us, but then uses the excuse of one hundred and fifty miles of crow's flight to stop any possible connection from flowing freely. Maybe I need to get down to Southampton and see - if anywhere - this thing is going.
Hey, that's not such a bad idea, even if it is Southampton. My frosty-atmosphered house is not in Southamption, which is one thing that makes it not a bad idea, anyway. I could do with some time away from ... here.
Monday 23 March 2009
Nancies on Ice
I came to realise one of the benefits of living in an all-male household last evening, when I rang Sarah at just after seven and she politely declined to speak to me as the final of Dancing on Ice was one and she and Ruth were watching it and would I mind ringing back after about a quarter past nine as that would give her a little bit of time to get Ruth nicely into bed. I could have grumbled and ascertained as to why she was watching such rubbish (not that I knew it is such rubbish as I hadn't seen any of it - it could be a rarified televisual treat for all I knew) but I just obliged and put the phone down.
As I was feeling low, both physically and mentally, I found myself flicking on the TV and watching the damned bloody thing. It was presented by a white-haired Philip Schofield (whom I'd last seen entertaining some squeaking sock-puppet on Children's telly) and some woman I'd never heard of but seemed notably encumbered in the chest department and seemed intent upon making the world in general aware of this fact.
There seemed to be six people in the final. It took me a while to gather that three of these were celebrities, and three of them were professional skaters. Out of the entire half a dozen, the only one who'd ever even slightly punctured my awareness was Donal McaIntyre (whom I'd always thought to be called Donald, so at least I learnt something). I'd no idea who Jessica Taylor was, and of the remaining twosome (Ray & Phillipa(?)) it was impossible to work out which one was the professional skater and which one was the alleged celebrity.
Anyway, all six did a bit of pointless ice dancing and Jessica Taylor was told to pack her skates and get stuffed and duly burst into tears because she'd wanted to dance for her mum because it was mother's day (ignoring the fact that I assume all the other competitors had mothers as well).
Next, the remaining four did a further ice dance to the Torvill and Dean (who were present to give expert opinion and too look old) inspired Bolero, or at least the bu66ered-up version of it (as the proper version lasts over seven minutes). Donal and his partner were frankly rubbish. One of the five judges (who was bald and camper than Charles Hawtrey in a tent) explained this to be the case and paid for such obvious honesty by being booed, insulted and finally thrown into the fiery pits of Valhalla. The other judges just whimpered and muttered jolly good effort.
That Ray then came on and quite frankly, took the pi$$. They should have called a halt after thirty seconds, chucked his trophy at him then filled the last hour with a Morse episode instead. I did finally worked out where I'd seen him before though - he was Edward and Tubbs' son from The League of Gentleman. No wonder he was so good with all the extra time he must have gotten at his nearest skating facility: "This is a local ice-rink for local people, there's nothing for you, here!"
But still they lumbered on. A whole troupe of nobodies suddenly emerged onto the ice. The only ones I recognised were Graeme Le Saux (Under-capped English left-back horribly ignored in favour of the brutish and thuggish Stuart Pearce), Ellory Hanley (formerly butch rugby legend) and Tucker from Grange Hill who quite obviously had never been within two hundred miles of an ice-rink in his entire life before that evening (perhaps Roland or Zammo chickened out at the last minute and Tucker was there for support?). Sadly, not one of them fell on their @rses.
Still no end seemed in sight. Torvill and Dean tossed their bladed zimmer-frames to one side for a few minutes and tottered around the ice for nostalgia's sake, one suspects. Then there was an advert break in which someone very obviously attempted to persuade me that I desired to give sexual oral relief to a pork sausage.
Back to the grind. Tubbs Jr and Donal(d) were lined up on the ice and Gordon-the-Gopher's ex-keeper announced who had won. Oh wait a minute, no he didn't. He got through much of the appropriate sentence without that crucial final bit. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. Then on a baboon who had wandered into the arena. Then back on both couples.
Then: "RAY!!"
Cheers, yells, shouts, hugs, tears, and Ray doing his best to act like he couldn't believe it. He said, quite sweetly: Although it was obvious to anyone with more than three braincells that I have more talent and ability in one of my discarded toe-nails than either of the other finalists, I'm still going to do my duty and act like I did not expect to win at all!
Then I switched off, and wondered where the last one-and-a-half hours of my life has gone.
Today I have felt mostly poorly. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty terrible and as the day wore on, the worse I felt. I feel light-headed; but conversely as well as though my head is stuffed full of cotton wool. I might go to the doctors, I might not (they'd only say it's a virus, anyway).
As I was feeling low, both physically and mentally, I found myself flicking on the TV and watching the damned bloody thing. It was presented by a white-haired Philip Schofield (whom I'd last seen entertaining some squeaking sock-puppet on Children's telly) and some woman I'd never heard of but seemed notably encumbered in the chest department and seemed intent upon making the world in general aware of this fact.
There seemed to be six people in the final. It took me a while to gather that three of these were celebrities, and three of them were professional skaters. Out of the entire half a dozen, the only one who'd ever even slightly punctured my awareness was Donal McaIntyre (whom I'd always thought to be called Donald, so at least I learnt something). I'd no idea who Jessica Taylor was, and of the remaining twosome (Ray & Phillipa(?)) it was impossible to work out which one was the professional skater and which one was the alleged celebrity.
Anyway, all six did a bit of pointless ice dancing and Jessica Taylor was told to pack her skates and get stuffed and duly burst into tears because she'd wanted to dance for her mum because it was mother's day (ignoring the fact that I assume all the other competitors had mothers as well).
Next, the remaining four did a further ice dance to the Torvill and Dean (who were present to give expert opinion and too look old) inspired Bolero, or at least the bu66ered-up version of it (as the proper version lasts over seven minutes). Donal and his partner were frankly rubbish. One of the five judges (who was bald and camper than Charles Hawtrey in a tent) explained this to be the case and paid for such obvious honesty by being booed, insulted and finally thrown into the fiery pits of Valhalla. The other judges just whimpered and muttered jolly good effort.
That Ray then came on and quite frankly, took the pi$$. They should have called a halt after thirty seconds, chucked his trophy at him then filled the last hour with a Morse episode instead. I did finally worked out where I'd seen him before though - he was Edward and Tubbs' son from The League of Gentleman. No wonder he was so good with all the extra time he must have gotten at his nearest skating facility: "This is a local ice-rink for local people, there's nothing for you, here!"
But still they lumbered on. A whole troupe of nobodies suddenly emerged onto the ice. The only ones I recognised were Graeme Le Saux (Under-capped English left-back horribly ignored in favour of the brutish and thuggish Stuart Pearce), Ellory Hanley (formerly butch rugby legend) and Tucker from Grange Hill who quite obviously had never been within two hundred miles of an ice-rink in his entire life before that evening (perhaps Roland or Zammo chickened out at the last minute and Tucker was there for support?). Sadly, not one of them fell on their @rses.
Still no end seemed in sight. Torvill and Dean tossed their bladed zimmer-frames to one side for a few minutes and tottered around the ice for nostalgia's sake, one suspects. Then there was an advert break in which someone very obviously attempted to persuade me that I desired to give sexual oral relief to a pork sausage.
Back to the grind. Tubbs Jr and Donal(d) were lined up on the ice and Gordon-the-Gopher's ex-keeper announced who had won. Oh wait a minute, no he didn't. He got through much of the appropriate sentence without that crucial final bit. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. The camera settled on Ray. Then on Donal. Then on a baboon who had wandered into the arena. Then back on both couples.
Then: "RAY!!"
Cheers, yells, shouts, hugs, tears, and Ray doing his best to act like he couldn't believe it. He said, quite sweetly: Although it was obvious to anyone with more than three braincells that I have more talent and ability in one of my discarded toe-nails than either of the other finalists, I'm still going to do my duty and act like I did not expect to win at all!
Then I switched off, and wondered where the last one-and-a-half hours of my life has gone.
Today I have felt mostly poorly. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty terrible and as the day wore on, the worse I felt. I feel light-headed; but conversely as well as though my head is stuffed full of cotton wool. I might go to the doctors, I might not (they'd only say it's a virus, anyway).
Sunday 22 March 2009
Mother's Day
Poppy was always disinterested in Mothering Sunday, and now it seems the children she abandoned by stepping in front of a bus eight years ago are just as disinterested in her - or at least the memory of her.
The first year Poppy qualified as a mother on Mothering Sunday was 1994. Which seems a lifetime ago now (and in Poppy's case, it is). In tandem with that BBC advert (a phrase which should, in my honest opinion, have remained an oxymoron), the rubble of the Berlin Wall was yet not five years old and the change of the public perception of Nelson Mandela from a grainy stock photo from the sixties to a living and breathing sixty-two year man occurred barely four years previously.
Poppy's qualification as a mother place me in a quandary. I couldn't ask if she wanted her association with motherhood acknowledged on the traditional motherhood-acknowledging day as I would be in the wrong no matter her opinion, i.e.:
[1] "Of course I do! Why should you even need to ask that?"
or
[2] "Of course I don't! Why should you even need to ask that?"
So, I flipped a mental coin, influenced by thought-processes that decided I would be deeper in the sin bin should I fail to acknowledge the day than option [B]. So I got a cheap and fluffy card (which I hoped - if all else failed - Poppy would assume to be deliberately ironic), stuck a felt-tipped pen in the five-month-old Andrew's chubby fingers and somehow got him to scribble something within it. I added a small volume of poetry and hid them in Andrew's Moses Basket for Poppy to discover upon Andrew's initial nappy-change, which she duly did so and gave me a perfunctory kiss and thank you. We then went through that charade of my claim of having nothing to do with the purchase, it all being down to a person whose only method of propulsion would be to hitch upon his back and continually thrust his pelvis, bouncing down the road on his back-side.
This arrangement continued for the next few years, mainly due to our boys happening along at the frequent interval of seventeen months (with the interesting addition of Gabriel just a few days before Poppy's second Mother's Day), until Andrew was four and Poppy told me that she didn't want anyone to bother with Mother's Day that year. Her reasoning was thus: That it was inappropriate to use one single day to show an almost forced amount of appreciation for a mother when what was actually done by the mother deserved far, far more than such a mediocre and insincere measure.
This lasted one year, as the following year Andrew came home excitedly from school with a green cardboard concoction upon which he'd stuck yellow and orange circles of tissue paper and other various bits. I didn't want the younger pair to feel left out so I helped them put together similar constructs of their own devising, and we burst into Poppy one unsuspecting morning with a tray of tea and buttered crumpets. She took all this with good grace but the adult in me could very easily deduce the lack of enthusiasm with which she endured the upset to her morning routine.
But that was the last time. By 1999 the Poppy we knew and found it within ourselves to love went away and was replaced by the Poppy we didn't know who took every day as one further to endure on her long and collapsing road towards death; until she took that short cut to oblivion, that is.
But today I wanted to remember that old Poppy, the pre-Huntington's Poppy. The one who swore far more than any woman is expected to swear and whom, with the surreptitious addition of alcohol, could be relied upon to find even filthier expletives. The woman who presented a concrete skin to the rest of the universe and held me under pain of death not to tell a soul she had to switch off Sophie's Choice before *that* choice because her emotions could not handle it. The woman who could skillfully turn any conversation into a discussion about her within thirty seconds of it starting no matter how oblique the opening exchange.
And it would have been sad enough, to journey to the now quite-far-away place where there exists a too-small memorial stone dedicated to her memory, but the fact I had to do it all on my own made it all the more hurtful.
My boys I think knew what was going to be expected of them, and not just because it had been discussed the previous Sunday, as they'd all made themselves conveniently scarce at a ridiculously early time. For f*ck's sake - it was a Sunday morning. It is normally a feat beyond superhuman endurance to prise any of them from their beds on a Sunday. Today they all escaped without even acknowledging me by ten in the morning.
I thought about waiting for all three to return before I ventured off, but by one in the afternoon it appeared clear they were not going to be returning any time soon, so off I drove on my lonesome with only my darkened thoughts to keep me company.
Fifteen miles later I was stood at the tiny, light-blue marble plaque that signified that Poppy once blessed the world with her unique presence. I didn't know what I was going to feel, and in truth, I felt nothing. I couldn't connect this piece of chiseled and polished stone with the only woman in the history of my world I'll probably be able to call my wife. I stood for a measured amount of time before the chill content of the air upped itself and I chose to go home.
All three of my boys were back, almost as if they'd been hiding, waiting for my departure.
So the air has been fractious within the house all day. I have been uncommunicative and withdrawn and I feel I have every right to be. I have not made dinner, leaving everyone to their own devices. I know I have tried to bring my boys up to be independent, but I seemed to have brought them up to be selfish as well.
The first year Poppy qualified as a mother on Mothering Sunday was 1994. Which seems a lifetime ago now (and in Poppy's case, it is). In tandem with that BBC advert (a phrase which should, in my honest opinion, have remained an oxymoron), the rubble of the Berlin Wall was yet not five years old and the change of the public perception of Nelson Mandela from a grainy stock photo from the sixties to a living and breathing sixty-two year man occurred barely four years previously.
Poppy's qualification as a mother place me in a quandary. I couldn't ask if she wanted her association with motherhood acknowledged on the traditional motherhood-acknowledging day as I would be in the wrong no matter her opinion, i.e.:
[1] "Of course I do! Why should you even need to ask that?"
or
[2] "Of course I don't! Why should you even need to ask that?"
So, I flipped a mental coin, influenced by thought-processes that decided I would be deeper in the sin bin should I fail to acknowledge the day than option [B]. So I got a cheap and fluffy card (which I hoped - if all else failed - Poppy would assume to be deliberately ironic), stuck a felt-tipped pen in the five-month-old Andrew's chubby fingers and somehow got him to scribble something within it. I added a small volume of poetry and hid them in Andrew's Moses Basket for Poppy to discover upon Andrew's initial nappy-change, which she duly did so and gave me a perfunctory kiss and thank you. We then went through that charade of my claim of having nothing to do with the purchase, it all being down to a person whose only method of propulsion would be to hitch upon his back and continually thrust his pelvis, bouncing down the road on his back-side.
This arrangement continued for the next few years, mainly due to our boys happening along at the frequent interval of seventeen months (with the interesting addition of Gabriel just a few days before Poppy's second Mother's Day), until Andrew was four and Poppy told me that she didn't want anyone to bother with Mother's Day that year. Her reasoning was thus: That it was inappropriate to use one single day to show an almost forced amount of appreciation for a mother when what was actually done by the mother deserved far, far more than such a mediocre and insincere measure.
This lasted one year, as the following year Andrew came home excitedly from school with a green cardboard concoction upon which he'd stuck yellow and orange circles of tissue paper and other various bits. I didn't want the younger pair to feel left out so I helped them put together similar constructs of their own devising, and we burst into Poppy one unsuspecting morning with a tray of tea and buttered crumpets. She took all this with good grace but the adult in me could very easily deduce the lack of enthusiasm with which she endured the upset to her morning routine.
But that was the last time. By 1999 the Poppy we knew and found it within ourselves to love went away and was replaced by the Poppy we didn't know who took every day as one further to endure on her long and collapsing road towards death; until she took that short cut to oblivion, that is.
But today I wanted to remember that old Poppy, the pre-Huntington's Poppy. The one who swore far more than any woman is expected to swear and whom, with the surreptitious addition of alcohol, could be relied upon to find even filthier expletives. The woman who presented a concrete skin to the rest of the universe and held me under pain of death not to tell a soul she had to switch off Sophie's Choice before *that* choice because her emotions could not handle it. The woman who could skillfully turn any conversation into a discussion about her within thirty seconds of it starting no matter how oblique the opening exchange.
And it would have been sad enough, to journey to the now quite-far-away place where there exists a too-small memorial stone dedicated to her memory, but the fact I had to do it all on my own made it all the more hurtful.
My boys I think knew what was going to be expected of them, and not just because it had been discussed the previous Sunday, as they'd all made themselves conveniently scarce at a ridiculously early time. For f*ck's sake - it was a Sunday morning. It is normally a feat beyond superhuman endurance to prise any of them from their beds on a Sunday. Today they all escaped without even acknowledging me by ten in the morning.
I thought about waiting for all three to return before I ventured off, but by one in the afternoon it appeared clear they were not going to be returning any time soon, so off I drove on my lonesome with only my darkened thoughts to keep me company.
Fifteen miles later I was stood at the tiny, light-blue marble plaque that signified that Poppy once blessed the world with her unique presence. I didn't know what I was going to feel, and in truth, I felt nothing. I couldn't connect this piece of chiseled and polished stone with the only woman in the history of my world I'll probably be able to call my wife. I stood for a measured amount of time before the chill content of the air upped itself and I chose to go home.
All three of my boys were back, almost as if they'd been hiding, waiting for my departure.
So the air has been fractious within the house all day. I have been uncommunicative and withdrawn and I feel I have every right to be. I have not made dinner, leaving everyone to their own devices. I know I have tried to bring my boys up to be independent, but I seemed to have brought them up to be selfish as well.
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