A trip to the doctor

“Excuse me doctor I can’t stop being a miserable git and I keep listening to songs about death and crying”

“Right ok, just a few questions. Do you wear mostly black clothes and a studded belt?”

“ Why yes I do”

“Interesting. Is you profile picture on your social networking site of choice a photo of you miserable little face taken by yourself looking upwards at your camera phone?”

“ Um no, it’s me on a swing”

“ Maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought. Have you been listening to My Chemical Romance?”

“ Well yes actually, especially Helena”

“ Do you talk about death quite a lot?”

“Normally only when I have had a few but I’m trying to stop that. I just talk about it anytime now”

“Goodness, well it appears Ms Howells that you are suffering from an acute case of emoitus. I think you should delete MCR from you MP3 player and go for a run once a day, preferably before a meal to disperse the melancholic gloom”

“Oh dear, I thought I was too old to get emoitus, I don’t even own any skull printed clothing, are you sure? And should I also delete Paramore?”

“ Emoitus can strike at any age. It is especially prevalent in miserable gits like yourself. And yes you should delete Paramore, Jimmy Eat World, Weezer, Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory and Funeral for a Friend”

“ Right you are doc, I’ll just listen to Rage Against the Machine instead. Thinking about it I have been wearing more skinny fit jeans recently, oh my god, I’ve got emoitus!”

“The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, I think we are already getting there”

A weekend of 2 halves

On Saturday I became a rampaging monster as I decided the house was a tip so spent all morning cleaning and tidying. Later on we headed over to the hospice. Roy was asleep so we sat for a while. My mum and dad arrived and so did my cousin Marcus and his stepson. Eventually Roy woke up. I sat with him for a while and then we headed home. Bob was a bit freaked out by being back in the hospice as this was the first time he had been back there. It’s odd how you can spend so many hours in a building and yet remember very little. I think I blocked out huge sections of my memory from those days but some bits are starting to return, triggered by me being back at the hospice. At the time Steve was ill I liked being in the protective shell of the hospice with my vast family around me especially my Uncle Roy and Aunty Margaret but I hated sitting by Steve’s bedside, I just couldn’t bear to see him like that. Unconscious with morphine drivers in each arm taking it in turns to fill him full of pain relief. People sitting holding his hand, talking to him even though he was no longer there, my dad getting upset, telling him not to go, my mum tearless as ever telling him it was time to go to sleep coz then it would stop hurting.

It is different at the moment as Roy is still conscious and quite talkative sometimes. He is also so glad to see me every time I go there. If he deteriorates much more I’m not sure I will be able to cope with sitting with him but I will try my best. He asked if I was spending Christmas with them this year, (I always spend Christmas with them) I said yes obviously. He smiled and said that was good, more than good. The chances of him actually still being here at Christmas are quite small, although I think I said that this time last year.

I find blogging quite a therapy at the moment. Not many people understand what it is like to watch somebody die so very slowly, being eaten up by this freaking awful disease, (unless they have witnessed it themselves). I should have people to talk to about it in that case given what has gone before. I talk to Bob sometimes, normally after we have been drinking though but I always feel as if I am stirring up memories within him and unlike me he does not want to let those memories stay. I can talk to my mum and dad but they are so busy sitting with him and rushing around making sure everyone else is ok. The rest are too close or far too busy keeping a stiff upper lip to show any sort of emotion. I wish Steve was here, he’d get upset with me and we could reminisce. So it comes to this, the queen of advice and opinion has to resort to blogging to get things of her chest.

Anyway….later that day Kev and O caught the train over from Hereford and we had a few drinks. In fact I got a bit merry, it was complete escapism. We ranted away about the wedding and Kev told us some stories about his drunken trips to the local pub. Just as we were leaving Bob decided to throw a glass of vino over Kev, not the best decision but he didn’t seem to mind.

Not for the jolly

Ok following the nice jolly blog about last weekend I think I may need to be a little dark and self absorbed for a time. I ‘m not going into great detail as it isn’t fair on the people involved.

My uncle got taken to St-Michaels Hospice last Wednesday. On Thursday I was working up in Burton but had finished by 12ish so decided to take the rest of the day off. I drove to the hospice and sat outside, my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. I hadn’t been back since that fateful day. I summoned up every ounce of courage I had, just thinking how glad he would be to see me. I went into reception and signed in and asked the lady behind the counter where he was, she told me the bed number and ward name, (there are only about 16 beds in the whole place). I didn’t recognise the name or anything but I just knew where he would be. I wandered through and my mum, dad and Aunty were sat outside the two wards eating their lunch. I sat down too and just said, he’s in Steve’s bed isn’t he. Indeed he was. Anyway, I stayed there all afternoon.

He’s going home on Monday, not an oh everything is fine type of going home though, quite the opposite, it could be a while though. The darkness is drawing in and I actually feel quite wretched. The light still shines from him sometimes, he hasn’t gone completely there are scraps of him left, contained within a shell of skin and bone. We are a very close family, the loss will hit us like an exploding bomb to have another one go before his time.

A weekend of Lego

This one is a bit late but never mind.
Last weekend myself, Bob, Dev Kp and Spex went down to see Ebby in Dorset. Bob and I were driving separately to Dev and KP, (for reasons I won’t go in to) so we decided to have an 80 days around the world style race. I was taking a tram whist Dev decided he would go by paddle steamer. My tram, (cunningly disguised as a Peugeot 206) won so Dev now owes me £20,000.

Anyway, on Friday evening we mostly got a bit tiddley and talked loads of rubbish, as usual. We met Jed the lurcher who is very old but very cool. I love dogs. In the morning we met Ebbys boys, they are lovely. I think I am the same mental age as Rowan who is 4. We had a bit of a chat about the spotty plane on the TV. Then the other boys, (the ones over the age of 25) decided they would play with lego. Lego is great and seems to be a fabulous appeaser, it doesn’t matter how cross you are if lego is placed in front of you all the worries in the world just evaporate. Maybe it could be used in peace negotiations in the middle east, they would be far more successful.

The older boys got a sort of production line going, Bob and Dev took it in turns to be foreman of the build of a security van, which meant they got to hold the instruction booklet and bark out instructions to the subordinates. Anyway, they busied themselves with this and I sort of just freestyled trying to make really obscure structures. I missed out on lego as it is supposedly a boys toy. I used to go to my cousin Lees house and play with his instead. IF, I ever have kids, and I can’t emphasise how big that IF is, and I have a little girl she will get lego to play with if she wants, I suspect she will have to fight her dad for it though. The security van was completed. In the mean time the boys’ dad had come to pick them up and take them to the cinema so we were child free and all legoed out. What could we possibly do? We went to a place called Stourhead and went for a little walk in the woods to a place called Alfreds Tower, Dev collects towers so he was very excited. I was excited as I got to see a water wheel almost immediately, yay!!!

We wandered into the woods and saw the sign saying it was 2 miles, so 4 miles there and back, just what we needed after a few bevies the night before. Off we toddled past a lovely autumnal scene of a still lake surrounded by trees with copper coloured leaves slowly dropping into the water. We came to a place where lots of clearing had been done and on either side there were big stands of evergreens. Within the evergreens we noticed a bit of a den that had been built. We all got quite excited and had to stand in it. We walked on a bit further only to discover there were loads of these dens built, some of them were quite technical and had working doors and bits of furniture inside. I’m sure they were more well built than my house is. After this we carried on to the tower and larked around there for a bit, unfortunately we couldn’t climb it as it was closed until March.

So we went back towards the main grounds of Stourhead to have a look at a folly that Mr D’arcy stood in in Pride and Prejudice. Well at least that’s where we though we were going. What we actually did was walk in completely the wrong direction and get completely lost. After wandering around the muddy paths for a couple for hours we sort of understood where we were but didn’t know how to get back to where we wanted to be. We found a really steep path heading in vaguely the correct direction and walked up it and found ourselves back very close to tower itself, arrrghhh, it’s like Blair Witch. We retraced our steps and found our way back. So we reckon it must have been a 10 mile walk instead of a 4 mile one. Ahh well at least we had worn off some of the booze consumed. We took a well deserved sit down and had a hot drink sat out in the drizzle, we had Jed the dog with us so couldn’t go inside.

Off we went back to Ebbys and decided it was time for Trivial Pursuit. It all got a bit tense as Dev was unhappy about having the least amount of cheeses at one point. Then the boys came back and diffused the situation. Rowan decided he wanted to play too, I think he ended up winning. Later on we went out for some food at a pub and I did my usual thing of over ordering. When will I ever learn I can only eat a main course?! We talked some more rubbish, I can’t really remember what about. (That’ll teach me for not writing this blog sooner) We then went to a bar called Charlies, there was a nice bitch fight going on outside as we arrived which reminded me of home, (Hereford). The dialogue went something along these lines

“ oy what d’you jus say about my mover. She’s myyy facking movvvvveeerr you faking bitch”

We didn’t wait to hear the faking bitches response but I bet it was equally as eloquent. We had a couple more drinkies and everyone was very chilled after the expedition earlier. We then met a chap who seemed to think he was Usher, he demonstrated that he was by doing a sort of driving mime for us. It was fabulous and I do agree that he was indeed Usher, there’s just no disputing it. At a couple of points throughout the evening Ebby disappeared, she was discovered behind the bar pouring pints, well whatever turns you on. We were all invited to a club afterwards, I can’t remember the name of it but apparently it’s on an industrial estate. We made an executive decision that it wouldn’t be worth the entrance fee as we were all pretty tired, so we meandered home to watch father Ted.

Next morning we lounged around for a bit before heading off our separate ways. Dev and KP went to monkey world, I wanted to go too but we really had to get back, boo hiss.

11/11/2008

Rupert Brooke
The Soldier
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Frozen fun.

On Tuesday Bob and I nipped to the Civic in Wolverhampton to see Sigur Ros. I haven’t been too well recently and had been suffering big time with snot and headaches etc…Anyway I felt ok on Tuesday evening and so off we went. The gig has got to have one of the most diverse audiences I have ever seen. Loads of kooky people ranging from 16 to about 70. It was nice, I felt like I belonged which I have to say I don’t really feel at most gigs anymore due to the little wipper snappers with far too much attitude.

First the support band, For a minor reflection, they are a 4 piece also form Iceland. They took the stage and played just the most beautiful instrumental atmospheric melodies, after the first ‘song’ the lead guitarist said they had only ever played to about 20 people before so it was very special for them. The entire place just erupted into cheering and applause because they had blown us away and nobody quite believed they had never done a bigger gig before. (they actually played airwaves in Reykjavik but that doesn’t count). The set carried on with crazy soaring tunes with quite hard rocky guitars. I’ve since found out that the guitarist is actually one of the dudes from Sigur Ros’s little brother. There must be something in the water in their village, (probably some nasty volcanic substance)

Then after much waiting around in the interlude Sigur Ros took to the stage. The lighting was really cool giving the impression that the band were playing their gig on the sea bed, this made even more realistic by the strange Whale type noises that accompany most of their tunes. They were fabulous and very experimental as ever, (I have never seen anyone sing into their guitar before, or play it with a strange bow type thing). We got snowed on at several points throughout the evening just to make the little monkeys feel at home. I felt at home too, I’m sure I have mentioned this before but I left a piece of me in Iceland, (and I don’t mean a toe nail, that was in Austria). I felt at home there more so than I have felt anywhere before. I love my home and I really do believe that Britain is beautiful but I fitted in Iceland. Bob says I couldn’t live there because the darkness in the winter would send me nuts but I think that is what is supposed to happen. Anyway, enough of this longing for my frozen Isle of fire and ice. Sigur Ros were great and so were For a minor reflection.

History in the making?

Well done Obama. I’d like to say I never doubted you, well I never doubted you, yourself. I think you are truly inspirational and it feels very odd to say but I trust you. I have never trusted a politician in my life, (except maybe Mo Mowlam). But I was expecting another dodgy voting result like a couple of elections ago when Al Gore should have got in. But yeah, well done yanks for voting for him, maybe you finally decided it might be a good idea to have a president who can string two sentences together. We were a bit concerned for a while. Let’s hope he can live up to all he has promised.

1st November

The weekend just gone started off well but went rapidly downhill.

Bob and I had a nice din dins at home and then went out for a little drink on Friday evening, (Samhain) with Dev, KP, Steff and Pete. We went to the Marwood down the Tything, which is so much busier than when it was called the Greenman, it’s just a shame it no longer has all the green man plaques on the wall. We chatted and argued as ever about lots of stuff. It was quite a subdues Samhain for me but I did raise my glass to those that were no longer with us and everyone joined in as usual. I hope I didn’t freak Pete out too much as he hasn’t been seeing Steff long so therefore may not be used to my ways yet.

We all left quite early, which was probably for the best given what was to happen later. Bob and I wandered off home and went to bed. About 5 in the morning the phone started ringing. I’m a very light sleeper so leapt out of bed and answered it whilst Bob lay in a very confused state in bed. It was Jen, Bob’s oldest sister who lives at the farm with their dad. She wanted to speak to Bob who had managed to haul himself out of bed and was wandering around looking befuddled. Jen had just had a call from the hospital where their granddad was after breaking his hip. He had taken a turn for the worse and they weren’t expecting him to last much longer. We got dressed and were literally going out of the door when Tracey called, (Bob’s other sister). His granddad had died before anybody had managed to get to the hospital to be with him. He wasn’t a young man obviously; he would have been 93 next week. Up until last year he had been very active, he had gone blind a few years ago due to glaucoma but still had all his faculties about him. Then he had a stroke and had not been the same since. A strange thing about the date, not only it was the day of the dead, (1st November) it is also the same day that Bob’s mum died.

We went back to bed and I finally went back to sleep. We got up a few hours later and moped around for a bit before going up to the farm. God it was cold up there, the wind was lashing the place as usual but it was a horrible biting wind. Tracey had just got there with Ben and Natalie his niece and nephew. Jen was there also but his dad was off sorting stuff out in Ludlow, (otherwise known as going to the pub). They reminisced for ages about the old man. He was in the Ulster riffles in the war and there were quite a few photos of him in his uniform in various places around the world. Bob’s dad finally turned up, carrying a pork pie for Bob, (it’s amazing how many people give him pies as gifts). We reminisced some more then finally drove home.

We were supposed t o be going out that evening with Bob’s old housemates for dinner. Bob was not feeling very sociable at all so he rang up Rich and told him we weren’t going. We sat in watching Saturday evening TV and eating fish and chips. Actually that’s a lie, we watched Hot Fuzz on DVD to cheer us up.