This is the picture

Now don't be alarmed, don't panic I'm going to say a few things here that some might think that I'm being controversial, I'm not really its just depends on how you view the big picture!

Firstly this is going to be the penultimate blog of the year, there I said it, I loving writing but I'm not in the right place to publish anything, too much going on in my tiny mind to comprehend, nobody can argue with that, as nobody knows what's going on in my head! I'm totally sick of publishing bile and although I have a ton of ideas that aren't bile, I'm not happy posting stuff that's not 100% I'm struggling with the big picture and I feel disconnected from the wife and all living things, so I believe that I have to at least offer her some support, this is not goodbye but quality control (at last) or so I would have myself believe.

I need to get some traction in my life, I have nobody to blame for this malaise but myself, if I don't get some traction people are going to get fed up and will cut the ties that bind, I know I have had a load of offers of help and I thank you all for that, however its something that I need to do, no matter how many offers of assistance I receive its something only I can do, so don't think that I have hit rock bottom (nearly but not quite) I know that I have to dust myself off and get on with it, I have done it before I'm sure that I can do it again.

I just had the crappiest birthday with only my brother really remembering it, not that I normally celebrate it, but the fact that the kids have to be reminded by their mother kicked me in the slats just a tad, adding up to my (imaginary ) tale of woes, so today I shall begin the long haul back to normality, if anybody wants to have a pop you can, just try walking a mile in my shoes then you might understand why I have become such a fucking misery, maybe it will shine some light on to why I am wired the way that I am.

So as I have said I am trying to right the displaced ballast (I'd love to know why I use all these nautical terms) in my rusty keel so if you see me on the street trust me I am trying to do my best, the blogs both old and new have being doing great business, and I have no idea why! over 15000 this year alone, go figure, keep spreading the disease I will be back hopefully better, but if all is equal I doubt before the new year, maybe a year round up and then to kick off the new year in a better frame of mind, I love all of the people who read and comment so don't panic its just a speed bump in the road, until the next time Toodles!

Silence amongst the static

This has been the longest darkest week of our lives, thankfully it begins to drew to a close tonight, huge amounts of damage have been done, however with the love of good friends we appear to have arrived at the other side battered but not bowed.

We lost a beloved member of the family this week and at such a young age, none of us were prepared for the despair that followed in its wake, the loss is terrible and although I have to admit to being a cold fish, I’m destroyed for the loss, I’m destroyed for the wife as I seem to be able to do little to console her although I won’t give up trying! Thankfully he is now at rest, not suffering anymore after that horrible disease claimed him way too early in his life, thankfully that “C” word meant nothing to him, it did nothing to shrink his happy go lucky demeanour.

There been a family fallout earlier in the illness, something which could have been avoided, but that’s not what the blog is about, it’s something that should have been avoided, it didn’t help either side, both sides suffered, us from not having as much access and the other side not being able to take up our offers of support, we bimbled on as best we could with short outbursts of emotion, totally debilitating  the wife when it hit, but she is made of sterner stuff and soon got back on the horse and rode on.

I attempted to bury myself at work, it worked to a degree but I was always easily distracted, the bear was not available for any meetings I hid more than I did work, my boss and work mates were fantastic, I honestly probably would have slid back into the dark old ways if not for them, I’m sure they weren’t aware, but they really did save the day for me. Music has as always been a constant, helping my many moods, especially when I didn’t want to connect to the outside world, which was often if I’m being honest, we got to see the little man one last time and he directed us to where we had to stand, the happiest point (for me) of the last few months, we had been told not expect much but as soon as he saw the wife he sat up happy over the moon to see her even the morphine couldn’t rob him of that happy moment in time, that will live with me for the rest of my natural life!

We were going to see him the following week but it wasn’t to be he slipped away, but we were there within five minutes and the wife got to hold him one last time, he really did love her, he loved being cuddled by her. Then our world tilted and ground to a halt and we had to try and keep it together for the sake of our own sanity, I was fine until I had to phone my boss and then I blubbed like a girl, work again was fantastic and I rallied all of the defences to come to the wife’s aid, it was agreed that the Hurricane would stay with us over the coming weekend, I’m not going say why I think it happened this isn’t the forum for that, we were just thankful to have that little bundle of dynamite over the threshold once more.

The week passed and we did what we were supposed to, we grieved, even me, we had arranged for the youngest daughter to come home and for once the house would filled with joyous noise, the Hurricane arrived and he was so excited to be here within a minute of being here he launched himself to the bottom of the stairs, stopping all of our hearts at once, I honestly thought he had broken his neck, thankfully he sat and grinned then realised he needed to cry for some sympathy and sweets, crocodile tears flowed for all of about 12 seconds and then he took off like a hurricane through the house, which he demolished and rebuilt over the course of the weekend several times, shouting at the top of his lungs his favourite word of the moment ”POOP” we soon cured him of that, every time he said his favourite word aunty kissed him, yup a typical little boy he stopped almost straight away. We did our usual yomp around Gimpsville, well he went on his scooter and I limped behind! More cards and flowers arrived and again I was doing really well until a card arrived from work with lots of people’s condolences “damn I sprung another leak” thankfully my defences were built tall and strong it was just the odd freak wave that got me from time to time.

The weekend finished quicker than I thought and soon he was heading home, the wife and the youngest had arranged a night out with friends to cheer themselves, me I sat in the house in the dark, I enjoyed it and not in a bad way, it just gave me time to think good thoughts, which was strange! Monday a last day to sort out things for the coming day, and we soon headed to our pits awaiting that dreaded day, Morning soon came back over the hill and I was up and making breakfast just like any other day, no matter what happens the world never stops turning. It started to rain, was this the littles man way of saying he was happy, I’m not sure, but he was ever present at the forefront of my brain for the rest of the day, I busied myself with cleaning shoes so that we could look nice and clean for inspection, the rest of the day went by in a blur and we were soon heading home and thankfully the wife didn’t turn into the Kraken, it was close but not close enough.

We got home and again we said we would look after the Hurricane, once again straight away he is into the sweets (we have taught him well) and the little blighter has only swallowed a bloody cola cube damn he is putting us through the hoops, crisis averted the youngest heads back to Uni, I sit here and my heart breaks as he looks at me and tells me he misses his brother, nobody should have to go through this at his age. Now we have to pick ourselves up and get on with our lives, they won’t go on as before, but we will do our best.

The blogs will hopefully now be able to try and return to some kind of normalcy, can’t promise but I will try, thank you to everybody in my life who have helped us over the last few months, I know thank you might not seem a lot but it’s all I have left, so once again thank you from the heart of my bottom (well I did say I was trying to return things to an even keel) so watch the skies there will another one along soon so until then Toodles!

I Am A Wildebeest!

Honestly I thought I was a rather “large” person until I saw Vince Neil on stage last night in Newcastle, again as always I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s pretend you are Tommy Lee strap yourself in, it could turn into a bumpy ride!

The night didn’t start out well with a large number of texts between me and the wife regarding conversations that we had had with each other in the run up to the gig:

No I don’t want my Jeans

The camera is on the video cabinet

Will you be on time??????????????? Yep you know she wasn’t!

Now if she had only listened the first time around…………………what am I thinking why on earth would she listen to me for!

A very busy day had me crippled (dodgy knees will do that to you) so my mood wasn’t the best, when she claimed that she was going to be at least another forty minutes (GRRRR) I did what I do best and I waited. She finally turned and thankfully we weren’t too off with each other (well for us) so we soldiered on as we do, and got parked up in our desired location I jumped out and stripped off (down girls down)  into my “gig” clothes (t-shirt and hoody- woo hoo) we then made contact with SMOR who was in the town with his good lady, so we said we aren’t far from where you are we will wait for you and meet up, well we waited and waited and waited it turns out SMOR had lost his sense of direction (WTF) once we finally  located him we ensconced ourselves on the ground floor  at the mile castle as SMOR had been to his regular ballet lesson and put his back out. Captain Bluebeard played a flying visit with his lovely lady and the night looked like it was going to be a good one.

Food consumed, we galloped (yeah right with his back and my knees) to the venue I told SMOR he couldn’t get lost he just had to follow the tribes of freaks heading towards the venue. Soon we were chatting and waving at lots of people who we knew (alright 95% of them knew the wife and thought I was just tagging along as a carer) and we chuckled as we watched SMOR climb the stairs to the venue one painful step at a time.

Now if you are a regular reader of the blog you know I won’t do a song by song account of the gig, I will give you the juicy bits, first the night was almost ruined because me and the wife couldn’t catch a battery falling through the air the same speed as an African sparrow, this really was a game changer and to think that we were about to go to war over a battery sums up our night (stop buying shite battery’s) thankfully the crisis was soon averted when we finally discovered it in the changeover, Alice Cooper was as always great, he had 50 minutes and he pulled out (most of) the stops, he always has a top notch band, although the fact that the bass player had half a sheep around his neck was just a little off putting, my only complaint was we didn’t need a drum solo a bass solo and a whammy bar exercise, we come to see Alice not the band, and yes in a two hour show he might need a breather but in 50 minutes (no thank you) how about another song? if you ever get the chance go and see him it’s well worth it.

The changeover was well coordinated but it looked like chaos at times, we then settled down for the main event, now I will admit to not being a fan, I like John Corabi and I would have preferred to have seen him, I have blogged about the band before (back in the mists of time in a blog entitled “A wet and soggy muff” don’t ask) to be honest when the stage was finally all sorted I was surprised and it was a pleasant surprise, it turned out to be a great show (the sound wasn’t fantastic where we were) but a full blown rock extravaganza, a drummer on a roller coaster and enough explosions to send someone with PTSD back to the beaches of Normandy!   Although I am positive that when he started singing “Anarchy in the UK” the opening line that he sang was “I am a Wildebeest” boy he certainly looked like one as well, I get why people like the band, and shock horror the singer even sang (kind of) but to be honest I’m glad that I won’t have to panic that the wife will melt the credit card whenever they announce dates, a great gig with great bands with only a couple of tweaks it would have been a top ten gig. The ladies were nice not for any other reason than it annoyed the wife, she can drool over Nikki Five or whatever you call the bass player but I can’t appreciate two energetic singer’s/dancer types, there no double standards there at all is there (oh have you not met my wife) and will somebody please don’t let mick mars do another guitar solo, I could throw it down the stairs more tunefully1

Then we took our own sweet time to leave (8000 leaving at once we weren’t going anywhere quick) and bumped into tons more people (well ok the wife did, I’ve never been that popular) but we did bump into G&E which really did make my night, finally my battered knees made it to the car and we drove home in some of the thickest fog of my life, duty manager today meant I could have a lie in, erm actually no I slept in first time ever, what the hell happened there, another musical blog anybody would think life is normal, it will be if we keep bumping into all the lovely people that we did last night, until the next blog  keep watching the skies………..INCOMING ………..for now Toodles