Arbeit macht pfffft

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t like work.  It’s not that I don’t like my job, which is actually ok, if a little dull at times.  I resent the concept of work, of doing any activity that takes me away from my home or place of comfort for too long.  The whole thing about work is just dreadful: being forced to wake up when your body isn’t ready; rushing around for forty minutes or so while you get ready; fighting whatever hideous travel atrocities you have to face; to spend eight hours with people who are OK, but you probably wouldn’t socialise with them (I don’t socialise with anybody), sitting at a desk, answering e-mails and making spreadsheets just waiting until it’s time when you can go home again.  Ninety percent of the things I do at my desk at work can be done at my desk at home.   If I got myself a new printer cartridge, it’d be 98%.

This situation is nothing new.  I have felt this way since I was a youngster.  I loved my lessons when I was at school and sixth form, even liked the environment, but couldn’t wait to get home – loved it when we got an hour off because of the teachers’ walk outs in 1985.  The same was true at university, and when I came to do my PhD, it was such a huge shock to me because I actually had to basically do a proper job for six days a week, for often more than twelve hours a day.  Well, occasionally, when I’d fucked something up and had to do it again, and again.  Because I was shit at it.

I think the only time when I actually really enjoyed working, really enjoyed it, was when I was doing my first couple of post doctoral associates positions about twenty years ago.  Even then though, I still couldn’t wait until home time.

The day is, at best, one big sigh – a big, massive pfffft.  I find myself restless and bored, unable to concentrate.  I become disruptive and petulant, like a stroppy teenager who needs a good kick up the arse.

There are two parts to this problem.  Firstly, I need something to do that will earn me money, that will challenge me, that I will enjoy doing and that will keep me out of trouble.  Secondly, I need to not leave my house to do this.  I could do fantasy dress-up sex for middle-aged men; that’d CERTAINLY challenge me, well, them: “Yes, you are definitely going to have sex, but it’s all going to be in your head and no, you’re not coming anywhere near me with that thing.  Which would you prefer, dominatrix librarian or the school dinner lady with two huge ladles?”

 

Trolololol

Maybe I could offer other services from the comfort of my own office.  I could take people’s Buzzfeed quizzes for them and let them know how sexy/clever/popular they would be if they were me.  Or maybe a useful service would be to scour people’s social media presences and give them advice on the things they might want to think about avoiding posting, over and over again.  We’re all guilty of this to a certain degree, but it just takes a true friend, out of real concern, and friendship, not annoyance or irritation or anything, to tell somebody to stop posting the same fucking status update over and over again: Oh look, another cream tea and champagne from you; Another moan about being stuck in work from you; You do realise that’s the twentieth photo of your child in the same pose in the last half hour.  To stop living your bloody life through what Timehop tells you what you did one year, two years, four years ago.  STOP STALKING THAT PERSON ON TWITTER!!! Just look at your bloody tweets!  Every single one is a direct response to the same celebrity, who by now has realised that you’re clearly insane that ignoring you or blocking you would destabilise you completely… just like all the other episodes.

When does offering people “friendly guidance” on social media become trolling?  I would make quite a good internet troll: I have the feet and hair for it.

The fresh scent of line-dried cardboard

Posted on by
Reply

Domestic pride has finally started to win the battle against my inherent slovenly nature; I’ve been doing housework this weekend. It all started with me looking despondently at my kitchen window yesterday morning.  There were a few cobwebs, bits of fly remnants, bits of dried, curled-up plant detritus that had fallen from the basil and chilli plants growing there, bits of soil.  General mess.  As much as the spiders had been my friends in terms of pest control, it was time for them to find a new home inside the dust collector of my hand vacuum.  It was time to clean the bloody window. Yesterday was very warm again and despite feeling like I was actually, really dying, the sense of achievement gained from cleaning the window and thefuckingvenetianblinds, spurred me on to tackle other elements of the kitchen that I’d let go for too long.  Next up was the cooker hood, which had grown a skin of greasy fluff that probably had sufficient nutritional value to keep a ballerina going for a month.  It was so easy to clean only laziness had kept me from cleaning it up to this stage. The back of the fridge freezer and the floor beneath it (absolutely disgusting) got it next, followed by… the dishwasher…   The thing about dishwashers The thing about dishwashers is that they’re great for storing all your used crockery, cutlery and pans until the time is right and the load is sufficient to warrant to operate the thing and wash them.  This is great because it means that you don’t have used cups, plates, bowls, pans, chopping boards, utensils, cutlery (that covers most cooking and eating apparatus) hanging around on work surfaces waiting to be washed up.  It’s nice and tidy and it allows you to get on with kitchen activities unhindered, which is particularly important when space and work surfaces are limited. I thought this was pretty logical: use something, give it a rinse, pop it in the dishwasher.  So why is it that this is a completely alien concept to everybody who visits my house?  They use a cup, rinse it out, leave it on the side, or on the draining board.  They even see me do it: rinse the cup, lean over just a wee touch, open dishwasher, place cup in dishwasher.  There are usually one or two items in there already to show them how things go, so there’s a template for them to work to.  And just what do they think is going to happen to the item that they’ve rinsed? It baffles me, it really does. ...Anyway, back to my dishwasher… I slid it out from its slot under the worktop, just enough so I could get the part of the floor on which it sits and give it a good clean.  To my horror, I noticed that the back casing of the thing had melted.  This stuff is made of some sort of heat-labile (not used that word since I was a smart arse) plasticky cardboardy stuff, which is ideal for an appliance that pumps high-temperature water around.  The internet told me that this is perfectly normal for machines that are a couple of years old and the stuff is only put on for sound-proofing anyway.  Why even bother with it then? The temperature was rising, I was weak through hunger and hot and sweaty, but I only had the work surfaces and the floor to go.  I was done in a jiffy.  Done in a Cif-fy ha ha ha!  It’s the smell of cleaning products. Just as I’d finished, my sister and her feller turned up to pick up my niece who’d spent all this time behaving herself upstairs.  My sister was hungover and in need of coffee, which I provided for her.  We sat and chatted for a few minutes while she drank up and my niece got her stuff together.  They left me in peace and picked myself up to lock the back door to prevent an axe murder while I was in the shower.  And there, on the draining board, was the cup that she’d used.   Anything for a streak-free finish Today, my kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it, but that’s the unfortunate nature of the universe.  Undeterred,  I have continued on my cleaning-spree and tackled the glass panels of my interior doors and the inside of the dining room window, the bottom ledge of which had become a graveyard for numerous houseflies and wasps.  My cleaning product claims to give sparkling, streak-free results in seconds.  It makes no mention of lasting elbow damage and the nagging disappointment that comes with the realisation that you’ve missed a bit.   The appliance of a sucky thing and a hot-air blowy thing I’m girding my loins in readiness for vacuuming.  This is a chore that is made much easier by the deployment of a cordless, light-weight, yet powerful vacuum cleaner.  Unfortunately, the little dog objects to vacuuming more than I do and a good proportion of the activity is interrupted by him trying to bite the machine. My house is full of labour-saving devices that make life more tolerable.  I couldn’t live without my washing machine or my melting dishwasher.  I also love my tumble dryer for the way it dries towels into big, fluffy bales.  Alas, on days like today, with the sun shining and the wind blowing, I can’t justify using my tumble dryer on the towels that are now pegged-out and drying to a cardboard-like crisp on the washing line.  What pleasure I’ll get from using them after my shower as they scrape against me and take off layer upon layer of my skin.  People who claim to like using line-dried towels are either liars or masochists.  I’d pity them if I didn’t feel such contempt towards them. I’m off to take out my pent up anger in a fight with the dog and the Air-ram. Bring it!

Humans of Farnworth

Posted on by
Reply

My Pepsi Max and shampoo stocks had become severely depleted.  This is a situation that causes me anxiety; I rarely allow myself to get to down to one can of pop, bottle or shampoo or toilet roll before replenishing my stores.  With this in mind, I set off towards the Asda in Radcliffe, only to turn round as I exited the Ringley border – I was sure that my pop was on offer at Tesco.

I could have carried on to the big Tesco at Prestwich, but it’s often difficult to park there because the lazy fuckers a) abandon their stupid massive cars over three or four spaces, and b) leave their shopping trollies in the remaining free parking spots.  The little Tesco at Farnworth would be much better and less likely to result in my blood pressure rising to a level that would make my kidneys explode.

It was a nice trip around the quiet store.  My shampoo and pop were both on offer, I was happy.  I took my little trolley to a till where a woman and a man were having their final few purchases scanned.

Why are you just standing there?  Why aren’t you packing your items in bags?  Come on, they’re not going to pack themselves.

The man on the till scanned the last item, “Twenty six pounds, fifty eight pence please.”

They both looked at him blankly before the man fished something out his pocket and the woman fished something out of her bag, money off vouchers.  They handed them over to the assistant, without speaking.

Then the woman then walked passed me and wandered off to the pop aisle.  What’s going on?  You’ve had your turn, pay up and fuck off.  And why the fuck have you still not bagged your fucking items?  And what is that gormless twat doing just looking like he’s had too many tablets instead of getting this stuff into bags while you’re fannying around getting the stuff that you should’ve got on you way around the store.

What

Are

You

Doing?

She returned with two bottles of pop.  At last!  Come on, get on with it.  Pay up, piss off.

And then she did it again, wandered off back into the store to buy a packet of biscuits.  WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK????

The final items were scanned and joined the pile of items that still hadn’t been bagged.  I pleaded with the assistant with my eyes.  Can’t you shoot them?  Or at least just get them removed from the store? Or just refuse to serve them? “Sorry, missus, you’ve had your chance, off you pop!”

E V E N T U A L L Y and v e r y  s l o w l y, the woman packed the items while the gormless mong accompanying her stood, hands in pockets, staring into space.  S h e  g o t  h e r  p u r s e  o u t  o f h e r  b a g  a n d  p a i d  f o r  t h e  g o o d s.  Good, fuck off, you annoying cunts, let me get on.

The assistant started scanning one of my five packets of pop, but couldn’t slide it down to the packing area because their bags were still there as they had a conversation with another woman who’d come to join them.  That’s right, you check your receipt, don’t mind me, don’t mind anybody but your stupid selfish selves.  Nearly all of my items had been scanned before I could move my trolley to the end of the till and start packing.  As I pulled out of my parking space to leave, they were still fannying around at their vehicle.

There should be a rule at supermarkets: once your stuff starts being scanned, that’s it.  No fucking off back into the store to get something you’ve “forgotten” because you’re a retard.

What the fuck is wrong with people?  Why are people like this even allowed anywhere near normal people?

Because this was Farnworth, and this is what Farnworth is like.  Before the little Tesco was built, the humans of Farnworth had their retail activities restricted to the Asda, shops and market in the town centre, but this store seems to have given them licence to leave the confines of that area and wander around where they can inflict the effects of their inbreeding on normal people.

I’m thinking of running for local government at some point.  As leader of Bolton Council, I will pass a motion to have all Farnworth residents fitted with explosive collars.  One wrong move, one foot outside of the “special zone” and KABLOOEEE!

The world will be a better place when I’m charge.  For me at least.

An undercurrent of resentment

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t have to go to work today. I suppose I don’t have to go to work at all, nobody is forcing me; all I have to do is resign and become destitute rather than facing the daily struggle to drag my ennui out of bed, into the shower and into the office.

For the past few weeks, since returning after my medical leave, the journey into work has been very challenging. Not because of the usual dreadful traffic, but because I’ve been suffering from a weepy left eye. It’s at its worst in the morning and about twelve hours later in the evening. I’d have assumed this was hayfever if both eyes were affected, but it’s just the one that feels as if it has a growth manifesting itself under the eyelid twice a day.

It’s got the stage where I have to drive to work with a tissue over my left eye; other commuters looking at me in puzzlement through their rear view mirrors. “God, love, we all hate going to work, but there’s no need to cry about it.” Once at a place of safety, eye drops or an Optrex eye bath bring momentary relief, but soon, the itching and stinging returns.

What I could do with is getting a pair of swimming goggles and filling the left one with Optrex. Genius.

My day off
So today I didn’t have to go to work. I’d booked it off to take my car into the garage and I wasn’t even going to pretend to be doing any work like I have to when I’m in the office.

After being given a lift back home from the garage by mother, I figured that, since it’s boiling fucking hot and nobody wants to be inside, I’d spend the day on my little bench in my little yard. After pegging out a load of washing – all gussets aligned neatly, all facing the same direction – I sat down and attempted to actually read an actual book on my Kindle.

Yes, I have a Kindle even though I hate reading.

Shut up.

As I sat down on my bench, it struck me how much noise people can make, just by being there. I’d expected my peace to be interrupted by the fucking cockerel, but there was a constant toing and froing as my neighbours, their two children and one of their friends went backwards and forwards from the house to their garden via two gates, both of which slammed shut with a wooden “BANG!” followed by the metallic rattle of the two sections of the latch closing shut. This happened every two or three minutes. For three hours.

Do you know what it’s like when you don’t notice something, but when you do, that’s it, and it makes you want to kill things. For example, people who don’t close doors by hand who instead let the fucking things slam shut every fucking time they go through them every fucking minute! What is wrong with people that they can’t hear the same noise as me?

I started to feel resentful. This is a day of my holidays that you’re disturbing; it’s ok for you, you’re a teacher and you’re off anyway, for six weeks, but I’ve actually taken today off as leave and I can’t relax because I am oversensitive to your gate.

They’re lovely people, a lovely young family who’d do anything for anybody, but days like today make want to go and rip their hearts out with my bear hands. Bare hands. I don’t have bear hands. Bears have bear hands.

Withdrawal
Perhaps I’m feeling a little bit tetchy because I’ve decided to stop smoking and drinking. I’ve not had a cigarette since last night and this, coupled with a half hour walk in 25ºC heat to my parents’ from the garage this morning, followed by an hour at my parents’, followed by the journey in a non-air conditioned car, all with a drippy eye and terrible hair, I think the combination of factors made me a little more sensitive to the banging gate.

So yes, when I say I’m going to give up drinking, I’m actually lying. I don’t think I’ll ever return to being teetotal, but I’d like to be just an occasional drinker rather than an habitual one.

Buzzy things, flappy things, bitey things
I discovered “Very British Problems” on the Twitter last night and, scrolling through their tweets, I found this:

20140725-173908-63548445.jpg

It made me laugh, but as I was writing this, I was distracted by the sound of a miniature helicopter trying to take off from the shelf above my front door. Of course, a massive moth had managed to make its way into here under cover of darkness and was undergoing its death throes in the heat of the sun as its every fibre and every last molecule of oil in its stupid flappy wings evaporated in the heat. Moths are fuckers with their stupid drunken flapping in the “sort of, not quite, oh maybe” direction of people’s heads, bumping into lightbulbs and general ugliness.

The house is full of bluebottles too. They come in through a massive open doorway, only to spend hours trying to leave by bashing their heads in against double glazing. I particularly like it when they manage to get caught between the blinds and the window, that constant “bzzzzzzz, bang, bang, bzzzzzz, bang” does wonders for my nerves.

I need a lie down. I’m going to take to my bed and count how many times I can hear my neighbour’s gate slamming over the next couple of hours.

Heatwave

Posted on by
Reply

As I start to compose this, the temperature in my little study is 27ºC as the residual heat of the sun still radiates through the blinds that cover the window behind me.

What a scorcher!

We’re having a heatwave here in the UK and it is divine.  The temperature has exceeded 26ºC for the past three days and the sun has beamed down on us since the storms that plagued the weekend were expelled.

I love this weather: the prickling of my skin as it’s stimulated by the ultraviolet rays; the perfect temperature; the sound of the fan in my bedroom as it hums through the night; the warmth of the light and the way this changes the colour of everything.

Of course, it’s not great weather if you happen to be stuck in a hot car, but the traffic is easing now that most of the schools have broken up for the summer and I have air conditioning.  At the first sign of the temperature rising as we emerged from winter, I tried the air con in the old/new (OLD) car that I bought in February.  It didn’t work.  After a couple of regasses at my local Kwik Fit, it still didn’t work, so I enlisted the help of the internet to find somebody who might be able to fix it.  He came one Saturday morning, the man with no personal skills, and soon detected a leak in the condenser, he’d get me a quote and call me back to arrange fitting.  Those fuckers at Kwik Fit were supposed to test for leaks before they put freon in the system; to put freon in a leaky air conditioning system is very bad for the environment and probably even illegal.  They’re now on my list of boycotted companies along with Pizza Express, Subway and Waitrose (although I don’t so much as boycott Waitrose as simply don’t shop there because we don’t have them up north).

The lady from Kool Car, were they called Kool Car?  Anyway she phoned me up to let me know that it would cost £208 to replace the condenser, service my system and regas it.  At this point, I had to make a decision: air con or brakes?  The air con won out; I can always use other vehicles or objects in the road to help me stop, but I simply can not bear the prospect doing without air con. And it is ICY cold, I love it!  So here’s a lesson to you: never get your air con redone in one of those places where they use an all in one machine.

The whole experience has taught be quite a bit about air conditioning systems in cars.  For example, there’s a thing from the evaporator called a drain tube and if it gets clogged, water pisses all over the passenger footwell carpet.  I discovered this yesterday.  Every adversity brings an opportunity to learn.  I discovered Ray the Mechanic on YouTube – the things he did with compressed air!

So anyway, not being a wholly irresponsible driver, the car is booked in to have its brakes sorted on Friday.  Kerfuckingching.  August will see me doing a bit of motoring with actual passengers and I obviously want to make sure that I can slam my brakes on and stop the car if I need to shout at them.

 

Lycra

The sunshine does bring its share of menaces: flying things; smelly things; noisy things; two wheeled things.  Yes, no doubt enthused by the Tour de France’s grand depart from Yorkshire last month, the roads are swarming with idiots in lycra who think they’re Mark Cavendish in that they insist on taking up the entire width of the road for their cycling pursuits and assume that cars should get out of their way – because that’s what happens for Mark Cavendish!  They irritate me, they are a danger to themselves and others, they are often aggressive and they are often completely thick.

The roads are narrowed because of cycle lanes.  Where do the cyclists ride? on the outside edge of the lane.  Or even in some cases, right in the middle of the carriageway with no intention of moving over for motor vehicles.  And then there are the three or four abreast ones who ride along winding country lanes with absolutely no care for the fact that they’re being complete bellends, they relish this.

I’ve had occasions where cyclists have tried to undertake me as I’ve been slowing down to turn left – and yes, I always indicate, yes, I will always slow down to let a cyclist clear a junction before I turn left if they’re in front of me.  There’s an unwelcome aggression that stems from a sense of them being hard done to by other road users.

Red lights mean nothing to a lot of them: another day, another pelican crossing, another near miss with another knobjockey ploughing on through when it was green for the pedestrians and red for him.  A colleague of mine had her jaw broken by one of these idiots in a hit and run.  No way to identify the culprit, no way to bring them to justice.

Some motorists are idiots too, lots of them, but motorists in general are licensed and insured, they are accountable for their actions and they are traceable if they cause an accident and hurt somebody.  So what’s the deal with the Lycra Nazis?  Nothing.  They just whinge and moan and get more road space without anything being introduced to make them safer, for their own sakes more than anything.

I hate them.  Rocky hates them.  And I’m sure the baby Jesus hates them too.

 

Commonwealth

The Commonwealth Games start in Glasgow tomorrow, the opening ceremony starts in ten minutes.  I’ll not be watching.  I SHOULD be watching, but I’ll be fannying around, bringing washing in and that.

One thing about these games is that the we compete as individual UK nations rather than Team GB. I’m hoping Stornoway has its own team.  I’ll cheer them on loudly.  I do love their black pudding.

Café culture

Posted on by
Reply

I saw a heartwarming story on BuzzFeed today.  It was just a simple note that somebody had made about a café in Cheltenham that had invited a rather frazzled-looking mum in for a cup of tea so she could regain her composure and feed her hungry baby.  The mum happened to want to breastfeed her little one, but that’s irrelevant; they offered her a place to sit down in comfort and peace and quiet and also some refreshment to get through her ordeal.

Now, in days gone by, I’d have maybe gone on a rant about fucking mothers taking their babies out when they know they’re hungry and likely to be screaming their fucking heads off  and disturbing the peace and why the fuck should they expect special treatment when, quite frankly, it’s their fucking choice.  Cunts!

These days, however… well… we all go out and about and we get frazzled for one reason or another. One reason I get a bit agitated is because I have to dodge parents with kids and prams who think they own the pavements and who think the world owes them a bloody favour just because they have bred.  Nobody offers me a free cup of coffee and a sit down when I’m frazzled, and when I do venture into a coffee shop, it’s often nigh on impossible to get to the bar or to find a seat because all the space is full of fucking prams, or kids running into the lower limbs of people who are carrying scalding hot beverages.

No, it’s fine, you come and have a mother and baby meeting here and block all the entrances, exits and walkways with your stupid, massive prams.  Get all uppity and assume that people will object when you want to breast-feed your child.  Seriously, I don’t care how you feed it, just shut it up.  And don’t go all “I can’t believe you’re bottle feeding your baby, don’t you know that breast milk contains all sorts of antibodies and goodness?” on some poor woman who for one reason or another chooses not to breast feed or who can’t breast feed.  And I pity your offspring if you’re passing all that bitterness and sense of entitlement onto them via your mammaries.

There was once a time when I had a significant other who I went out and did things with.  We found ourselves in York, or was it Harrogate, somewhere a bit nobby and Yorkshire and we were looking for somewhere that sold nice coffee (that being Illy) before setting off back to Manchester.  And there it was, the shining beacon to all coffee connoisseurs – an Illy sign on a wall behind a railing-enclosed yard.  Even better, the café itself was actually down a flight a of stairs.  The potential for the yummies with their four wheel drive, temperature-controlled prams was negligible.  We descended the steps and, to my horror and disgust, there they were: table upon table of mothers with babies, their prams blocking doorways, the bottom of the stairs, the path to the counter.  They will always find a way.  And fuck, will they bitch about having to navigate pram “unfriendly” access to get there.

I had a dear friend stay with me this weekend.  We know each other from my time in Coventry over twenty years ago.   On separate occasions, both she and her partner were housemates of mine. Although they live together still in the Kingdom of Surrey, we still try to keep in contact and are determined to see each other at least once a year.  She’d come up north to do some ridiculous swimming thing in the faeces-infested waters of the Manchester Ship Canal at Salford Quays.  I went to meet her, accompanied by yet another hangover, on Saturday morning after she’d finished her activity.

I was in desperate need of food and coffee, she was in need of food and tea, we nipped into Café Rouge at The Lowry.  I was kind of hoping that, at 11.30am, they’d be serving the lunch menu, but, crestfallen, I was handed the Petit Dejeuner menu as I took my seat – not inside, but not quite outside, which I thought was a bit oo la la enough to watch the torrential rain as it battered the concourse between the utterly rubbish outlet shopping mall and the not too bad Lowry Museum and venue for all sorts of shows and shit.  Anyway, at the table next to us was a woman of my age, maybe a little younger and an older woman, and some little boys, probably about five or six years in age.  They looked lovely actually; dressed the way little boys should be dressed with little short sleeved, checked shirts and nice trousers.  My mind wandered to them: I am hungover, I have a fork in my hand, the waitresses are carrying hot drinks.  But apart from one of them standing a bit too close to me at one point, they were impeccably behaved, if a little bored by the time the grown ups had finished fannying around.

it’s always the grown ups’ fault.  Mental health problems, learning difficulties and the like notwithstanding, kids are inherently good.  But kids work at a different pace to adults.  Like me with my family, if I’m in a restaurant with them too long, I start acting up.  That’s usually related to sound levels, repetition and nicotine withdrawal.

When I grow up and I own my own café, well-behaved kids will be welcome between the hours of 8am and 8pm.  Their parents, on the other hand, will be barred.

The return of the Cakesniffer

Posted on by
Reply

I have a new friend who is intelligent and cultured.  My new friend shares my interest in keeping a journal of some sorts – although I suspect my new friend’s private musings are more eloquent than those that I have been posting online since 2005.  In the early days of our acquaintance, I mentioned that I had been blogging for a while and I recently shared the links to my previous online incarnations.  My new friend is now becoming acquainted with Sniffy.

There’s something really rather nice about opening a door on your past to somebody who has come into your life… and potentially dangerous.  This person knows me in the now; the bored Tina who is desperate to do something useful with her life, but who has had most of her enthusiasm drained from her by a secure job and a mortgage.  When I started blogging back in January 2005, I was healthy, happy (for me), untainted from the disappointments of love and work, I had Max the cat, there was no Rocky, no emotional baggage.  I was a free, don’t give a fuck spirit who found it so easy to write each day about any old crap that came into my head.

What are the consequences of allowing a relative stranger get to know you through words that were written when you were nine years younger?  Well, it’s a hell of a lot easier to tell somebody to go and read your old blog than actually go over the whole fucking history of your life, so that’s a bonus.  It also provides another insight into a person, seeing how they reflect on the happenings of their days; how their opinions change (or not), how they develop their writing style, and how this changes when the author is aware that they have an audience – as I did back in the day.  Oh, those days when I’d argue in my comments sections of posts.  When the folk of Stornoway made me their enemy, when Ryan the Catholic picked on the wrong queer.

Of course, in those days, I used to be arsed with linking to things and shit.  These days, well, I obviously can’t.

But one thing my new friend has made me realise is that the stuff I wrote, every day for so many years, is actually (in part at least) pretty bloody OK.  Everything I wrote reflected my feelings, opinions, experiences and I would always be more than happy to talk about exactly the same things with my friends and probably colleagues.  I guess at the time, and maybe even now, the reason I didn’t advertise my blog to people who I knew in real life was the “geek factor”, which means I was only uneasy about letting people know about the thing because they’d think I was a bit of a twat for keeping an online journal.  But what the hell?  People I know have interests that don’t particularly interest me, so why should I be bothered that people dismiss all this just because it’s not their particular bag? I’m not.  I share stuff on Facebook and Twitter that are bitesized snippets of the long-winded opinions that I’d previously choose a blog post to write about. Within the confines of  140 characters, I can write “Traffic home shit again, thanks @TGFM @salfordcouncil cockmunchers #prioritybuslane #ohfuckIverunoutofcharacters”, but here I can tell you the whole fucking story, and much, much more.  More importantly though, I can generate something that in years to come, I will be able to look back on and actually have a giggle at.

So, anyway (:@), encouraged by my new friend, I have reflected on my previous blogging exploits and realised that all that old crap is actually not that bad at all.  And so, anybody who happens to read this will be THRILLED to find that I have imported all those old posts from my Cakesniffing days  into this blog.

Happy reading, losers.

The rest is history

Posted on by
Reply

On the Sunday after my operation, I was finally reunited with my little dog.  My sister returned him to me as I was having a Netflix binge of Sherlock at my parents’.  He was excited to see me for about two seconds before disappearing upstairs to snooze by my dad’s side of the parental bed.

What followed was something very special in my niece’s young life: her first ever viewing of Beaches.  This is a terribly long and quite a grown up film for a seven year old to experience, but she watched with us all and joined in the mass sniffle as the immortal words rang out It must have been cold there in my shaaaaadoowwwww… 

I don’t let people see me cry.  It… must… be… something… in… SNIFF… my… SNIFF… eye… SNIFF.

 

Les revenants

Mum took me and the little feller home that evening.  She offered to wash my hair, which by this time was being tracked by biological weapons inspectors who’d been diverted from activities in Syria.  

I don’t think my mum has washed my hair since I was very little.  Her once firm and reassuring hands were now weaker and less coordinated.  Her growing frailty is becoming a worry and I’m convinced that my need to catch her attention before I speak to her isn’t entirely down to age-related loss of hearing.  Still, to have her look after me again after I’ve been independent for so long, it’s something that I have and something that I’m indebted to her for… along with all the other stuff.

That night,  I took my clean head to bed and I slept well in clean, crisp bedding, thankful of my foresight to change the bed before going into hospital so that the discomfort of the sagging fitted sheet was avoided, for one night at least. 

 

Sorry, Rocky, your walk ends here

Monday was restful.  I’d spent the day in bed, larking about, texting friends and chatting on Facebook, but by the afternoon, it was time get up and do something with the day.  A shower was out of the question, so I took an actual bath, with bubbles, and got dressed and ready to take the little dog for his walk.

He was SO excited as I put his collar and lead on, bouncing around and yapping at me in his adorable fucking annoying as hell way.  We left the house and made our way down the main road.  By the time we got to the end of the block, I was exhausted, sweating and out of breath.  We stopped.  I looked down at him.  He looked up at me with pleading brown eyes.

“Sorry, Rock, we’re going to have to turn back.  Mummy can’t do this today.”

With that, we turned around and walked back home.  It was if I was walking through quick sand. The  few hundred yards felt like miles and when I finally got home, I turned to him and said, “I’m going to have to take myself to my bed.”

 

Like a light being turned on

As the days passed, I recovered my strength.  My walks with my little friend returned to normal.  I noticed that I was waking in the morning and staying awake; in spite of the discomfort, I was starting to feel good, alert, alive even.  For so many months, years even, I had been existing in a dim light of depression and fatigue and it was becoming evident to me that my body was waking up.  Whether it be the rest from work, the normalisation of my hormones and calcium levels, the sunshine, or even certain psychological factors, I was starting to feel good.  Good, well, happy(ish). 

I was able to remove my dressing one week after my surgery and this meant that I was allowed to shower normally again; something that I’d taken for granted for such a long time.  

Undressed

Sleeping was uncomfortable for a while, and driving was out of the question because I couldn’t move my head.  Using the excuse, well, valid reason, that I could lift my head to pluck my eyebrows (or drive), I extended my sickness absence from work for an extra couple of days and finally returned to work a little under three weeks after my operation.

It now seems quite some time since I had those couple of weeks off to recover, and it’s still relatively recent, but the wound has healed and the scar is already fading, as are the previous years where I’d become lost in the shadows of sub-clinical hormonal weirdness.

Scar 16.07.14

 

 

 

A hostage of maternal worrying

Posted on by
Reply

I wasn’t allowed to be on my own for a few days after the operation; my plans for peaceful convalescence delayed by care pathways and other such nonsense, nonsense like not being able to look after myself and being unsteady on my feet. It had been decided that I would stay with my parents as a condition of my release from hospital.

The little dog, meanwhile, was living it up with much fussing from my niece, my sister and her partner. Of course, he had to endure punishment beatings from Skippy the cat, but their relationship had improved since their first meeting when Rocky was ridden like a bucking bronco with the cat employing his claws to full effect.

My niece was at my parents’ when me and mum arrived back. I showed her the photo of my scar that I’d selfied when my surgeon had removed my dressing.

Zipped

I told her that I’d been fastened shut with a zip and that I wasn’t sure whether I was water-tight, that she’d have to keep a close eye on my while I ate my dinner in case I leaked. She laughed, made me laugh, made me cough, almost made my staples explode. She watched with great intensity as I ate a chicken salad.

“I think they’re just about holding, Con, but I’d better just leave this piece of cucumber in case it pushes me over the edge.”

“You’re allowed an ice cream though?” With that, she ran to the kitchen and asked her nanna if I could have some ice cream. Bounding back to me, she handed me a single portion tub of vanilla and a spoon. I certainly wouldn’t have been getting this if I’d gone home to my empty house. Maybe going there wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

OMG, I’m an actual disabled person!
With dread, my bladder told me it was time to visit the bathroom. Nothing much wrong with this per se, but my folks are old and they’ve been provided with living aids for their bathroom, including a riser seat over the toilet (possibly the most unhygienic contraption I’ve ever encountered) and an electric rising bath chair, which takes up all the space in the bath. Oh god, I’d have to use this bathroom for days, I’d lamented on my previous visit there. I shuffled my way to the foot of the stairs and looked up, as best I could considering the restricted movement of my head. The twelve or so steps rose ahead of me and into the… distance. I made may way up, step by gruelling step, my energy sapping with every foot raised. By the time I reached the landing, I was sweating, my heart was pounding and I was short of breath. What the actual fuck? How could I allow myself to convalesce at a place that wasn’t equipped with a Stannah?

Now accustomed to the fact that I was temporarily disabled, I relaxed into my I feel ever so weak, please can you get me… Death in Venice persona and allowed my mum and dad to care for me for a while before trudging back upstairs to my old bedroom to settle down for the night.

Pins and needles in my face
The following day, I had to go back to the hospital to have half of my staples removed. The first challenge of that Friday morning was trying to have a shower from the chest down. This, of course, meant me having to balance in the one end of the bath that wasn’t occupied by the electric chair (an electric chair? in a bath?) and use the shower by holding the head of the pissy electric shower in one hand while trying to wash my body with the other. I couldn’t wash my hair for risk of getting my dressing wet. It hadn’t been washed since the Wednesday morning before my operation and was starting to take on a life of its own.

Clean, but not clean, Mum drove me to my home so I could collect some clothes before going to the hospital and it was there that I started to feel a bit odd: my arms were weak and tingling with pins and needles. Within a few minutes, my face and eyes were suffering the same effect. This is odd, I thought, should I mention something to Mum? Not wanting to worry her, I kept quiet and let her drive me to the hospital. Once she’d parked, I told her. Expecting panic, I was surprised when she just said, “Oh, just tell the nurse when you go in, it’s probably nothing”. Then I considered for a moment and remembered that this was the woman who’d had her heart stopped and restarted the day before my own operation.

We were met by the sister on the ward and I told her my concerns before allowing Mum to start on her. “Oh, your calcium levels might be a bit too low, we’ll do you a blood test,” she said calmly. And with that, I was invited into a clinic room where another nurse attended to me with staple removers.

The tugging of my skin as she removed half of the metal objects was slight sickening, but she made everything better: “Do you want to keep your staples?” Well, you lot kept my tumour so that’s the least you can offer!

“Before you put another dressing on, can I take a photo?”

“Of course you can, go ahead”

What I saw made me feel a little bit poorly, but these things must be done in the name of posterity (and acquisition of sympathy wherever possible).

half zipped

“I’ll just take your blood sample and we’ll see you tomorrow to have the remainder of your staples out. We’ll get in touch if you need to do anything in the meantime.”

And with that, I was free to leave and face another hair-raising journey with Mum in ever decreasing control of the Corolla.

One with the wind and sky
Little Con was waiting for us when we got back to my folks’. She looked upset, “boys from school being nasty about Nonno”.

“Well, Con, the best thing to do is ignore them. They’ll be washing your big car one day when you’re all grown up and successful. Shall we watch Frozen and eat some sweets?”

With that, she perked up and we all settled down to watch the Disney masterpiece, again. It’s got to the stage where we can all sing along to it, something that might have been absolute torture for me a few years ago, but with age, and a good soundtrack, I’ve learned that the best way to enjoy Disney is to become fully immersed in the birth defect-like facial features of the characters and the simple, yet gripping, story lines. Do you want to build a snow man?

My sister arrived with the little dog. He was very pleased to see me, I think. We all watched and sang along… Let the storm rage oooooonnnnnnnnn… the cold never bothered me anyway

“We’ve got to watch it right to the end of the credits because the ice monster comes back to the palace and takes Elsa’s crown” Con protested as Anna tried to persuade her to stop the DVD so she could watch Pointless.

“But that’s it, nothing happens, the film has finished” Anna employed her irritatingly whiny voice.

“I want to see the ice monster! If Con says that the ice monster comes back, I want to see it!” I winked at my niece. Well, I can’t wink, it’s more of a retarded blink than a wink, but Con got me.

And there, as the credits finished rolling and the music stopped, the scene cut back to Elsa’s ice palace where the ice monster found Elsa’s crown, placed it on his head, and did a little dance. So there be a lesson to all the doubters.

Unzipped
Saturday morning came and I woke at 4.30 am. Not only was I awake, I was alert. Actually awake and not dragged back into sleep unconsciousness by the fatigue that had consumed me for so long. This was weird.

Anyway…

Another shower challenge and another day with new life forms growing on my scalp and I was ready for a return visit to the hospital to have the remainder of my staples removed.  I was certain that Mum would kill us both on the journey there, but we made it one piece.  

I wasn’t feeling tingly anymore and the nurse confirmed that my calcium levels were fine.  Thank fuck I hadn’t gone out and panic-bought Rennies! She proceeded to invite me into the clinic room where she prepared herself with gloves and staple-removers.

“Sorry, love, this one seems to be a bit stuck,” I felt the skin on my neck being tugged.

“Yes, your colleague had difficulty with that one yesterday,” please be careful!

More tugging, then release. “There we go, all done! I’ll just get you a dressing and then you can go.”

“I’ll just take a selfie of it before you cover it up”, my voice followed her out of the room.  I snapped away.

Unzipped

 

With that, it was covered up again and I was given instructions not to get it wet, “your hair will just have to smell until you can shower properly on Wednesday… or you could ask somebody to wash it for you.”

And so, for the time-being, I was released from the care of the hospital staff who had been pretty brilliant in all my encounters with them.  I just wish they were allowed to tell the annoying, unappreciative, demanding fuckers to go fuck themselves and get some fucking manners.

Under the knife III: the road to recovery

Posted on by
Reply

I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but I was woken by the lovely Tabitha wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my left arm and clamping a pulse oximeter onto one of my fingers. I barely registered the cuff inflating, then deflating before an electronic thermometer was stuck in my ear. “We just need to take a couple of swabs too. One up your nose and one from around your groin.” Now accustomed to having lost all dignity and ownership of my body, I let her at me with her elongated cotton wool buds.

A busy-looking and very well-groomed charge nurse arrived at my bedside with my things.

“Hi, I’m Lee and I’m the charge nurse for the ward this evening. I’ve finally found you! Your things had been taken to the wrong bed. Anyway, if there’s anything you need, just let one of us know.” With that, he spun on his highly-polished, pointy shoes and left my bedside. My eyes tracked him to the nurses’ station, which was on the corridor directly outside the eight-bedded bay, I saw with bleary eyes that my sister had arrived with her partner. I waved them in.

I think you’ll find you’re in my space
They arrived at my bedside and it was this point that I noticed that there were already two visitors next to my bed. It just so happened that they were visiting the woman in the bed next to me, but they’d seen fit to encroach on my side of the space between the two of us rather than, like socially adept people might, sit on the other side. I could use numerous words to describe this man and woman: her bizarre outfit, her excessive jewellery, her generally odd appearance, his gormless expression, the baseball cap. But why use so many words when two will suffice: trailer trash. Oblivious to the fact that my visitors couldn’t get to my bedside, the woman who was the daughter spent her time focused on being abusive to her mother while her partner interjected with the occasional “Ha! look that this that Brian has posted on Facebook. Fucking hilarious!” Coming to an episode of Jeremy Kyle soon.

My sister drew the curtain around me, the sound of which hid her breathing the words “fucking scumbags” as she rolled her eyes. She passed me my glasses and my phone, I responded to a few text messages and asked her to put it on charge. Then she passed me a drink. It was with a certain degree of apprehension that I took a drink. What if I was leaking? What if it REALLY hurts? Why DOES my chest and throat hurt so much? I really didn’t expect it to hurt there.

She asked the standard questions about whether I’d seen my surgeon, when I’d be getting out, if I needed help going to the toilet while I was there. Essentially, made sure I was OK before pulling out some supplies and placing them on the table trolley next to my bed.

“Oh, you need to make sure these are easily accessible at all times, so don’t cover them up with anything.” She was pointing to something that had been taped to the table.

“What are they?” They looked like nail clippers. I could’t imagine anybody needing to clip anybody’s nails with any degree of urgency.

“They’re staple removers. You’ll have been stapled shut, but if there’s an internal bleed, they’ll need to get in there without any delay so they can put a drain in. OK then, we’re off. You get some rest and we’ll see you soon. I’ll leave this curtain closed.” She nodded towards the visitors again and, before I could say “Give Rocky a cud…”, they’d gone.

Hospital toast
Drifting in and out of sleep, I was woken intermittently by the conversation between the young woman in the bed to the right of me and her visitors. Yes, I know they’ve come a long way to see you, but it’s gone 9pm now and visiting is supposed to end at 8 and I’m tired and you’ve all covered how much of a twat your ex was and yes it’s great that the nurses have allowed your friends to stay for longer, but some of us have had surgery this afternoon and we need rest! Between that and my stomach telling me I was hungry.

Like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben, the supper trolley arrived. At last, some food! The young woman with the trolley stopped at the “soon to be featured on a daytime TV programme” patient next to me.

“Can I have two slices of toast, no, make it three slices, and three packets of biscuits? Ginger biscuits.”

She was obliged without question. What if they run out of toast before they get to me?

“Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate, no, tea. Tea.”

I scowled at her lack of manners, but my smile returned as the trolley arrived at my bed. I wish I could remember the name of the healthcare assistant who provided these refreshments. She was ever so nice, worked non-stop throughout the night and was so caring with everybody. Anyway, maybe she was a bitch and I just liked her because she asked: “Would you like some toast?”

GIMME THE FUCKING TOAST!!!!!! And did I hear biscuits? And hot chocolate??? Bring it on, I’m so hungry!

“Yes, could I have a couple of rounds please? And some hot chocolate? And… do you have any biscuits left (after that greedy fucking bitch took a load)?”

“Yes, of course, I’ll put you some milk in your hot chocolate too.”

There’s something about hospital toast. It really is the best toast in the world. Even though it’s not really warm, even though it’s a little bit soggy by the time it gets to you, it tastes wonderful. I devoured the slightly greasy, soggy toast, drank my not-so-hot chocolate and rested back against my pillow.

The long march
It was then that it hit me. I really needed a wee.

We’d switched from Tabitha to Priti and, once she’d been accosted by her to the left of me for the fourth time in five minutes for requests such as “Could you pass me that off my table?”, I called her over.

“I need a wee, but I’m a bit scared to go on my own, I still feely a bit groggy and wobbly, could you get somebody walk with me in case I feel unsteady please?”

“Just give me a minute and I’ll take you. Here, your drip has finished, I’ll take this off so you don’t have to take the drip stand with you.” With that, she unscrewed the tube from my cannula, dropped the side of the bed and steadied me as my feet hit the floor.

As if my legs weren’t my own, I moved one in front of the other and she steadied me on what seemed a five mile walk to the bathroom. I hadn’t expected to feel this weak, but since I’d already perfected the hospital shuffle, I figured I might as well use it to full effect.

Returning to my bed without incident, I asked if I was allowed to change into pyjamas. Priti looked at me as if I’d asked if it was OK to blow my nose, “Yes, of course it is.”

Casting off the hospital gown and changing into my own nightwear, I felt slightly less owned by the hospital. The scheduled two-hourly observations put me back in my place.

Can we get you some REALLY strong opiates?
I was in pain. I couldn’t deny it any longer. Yes, the area of my wound hurt, wherever that happened to be underneath the tight bandage around my neck, but it was my chest that concerned me the most. Why is it hurting there? Did I have some sort of infection starting? What’s going on?

Biting the bullet, I asked for some pain killers.

“Would you like some codeine?”

What the fuck? Now, I’m the first one to admit to taking the odd recreational cocodamol
when I was teetotal, but knowing the effects, the wooziness in particular, I figured that, what with still having anaesthetic and morphine floating around my system, codeine was the last thing I needed.

“No, paracetamol will be fine thank you.”

The same happened the next morning. Tabitha was back on duty. “Do you need any pain relief?”

“Yes, can I have some paracetamol please?”

“Are you sure you don’t want codeine?”

Do you do take out for when I’m feeling a bit better? I could have some for when I’m home perhaps? Sell it to any takers? “No, honestly, paracetamol will be fine.”

Everybody just shut the fuck up, but especially YOU!
I’d been under no illusions that I’d be spending the night in anything approaching comfort or privacy. It’s not possible when you’re sharing a sleeping area with seven other women, all at different stages of post-operative recovery. It’s expected that your sleep will be interrupted so the nurses can do your observations, that other patients will need attention, that stuff, in general will be going on. But as the lights were dimmed, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, unsuspecting of the constant disturbance I’d experience from her next to me. All. Fucking. Night.

There were the “nurse, can you pass me those tissues?” orders. The five visits to the bathroom: a groan, then a whimper, then the shuffling as she went TO the toilet… I drift off to sleep only to be woken again be her… shuffling BACK from the toilet. FIVE times. The piece de resistance was her opening a packet of biscuits and crunching away at 4am. Biscuits, at 4am. After four slices of toast and biscuits just a few hours previously.

Why are they keeping you alive? Why are you even here? Just go the fuck home!

Then there was the door behind the nurses’ station. It needed oiling and the closing mechanism needed adjusting so that it didn’t close with a… creeeeeeeeeak… BANG! Every time a staff member went into room behind it, something that happened seemingly every two minutes. Or maybe, just maybe I’m the only one on this planet who can hear doors slamming? No? You can’t hear that? You obviously can’t hear it because maybe if you could, you’d hold onto the door and make sure it closed quietly so as not to wake up every poor fucker who’s trying to get some fucking sleep! Oh GOD, and here they are with their bloody sphygmomanometer a-fucking-gain!

Each time I woke, I was reminded of the pain in my hand and wrist, of the pain in my chest from whatever the fuck was going on in there, and the fact that I needed to cough, but was too scared to in case something exploded.

I removed a very large adenoma… oh, and your thymus
After surviving the night without ramming a packet of biscuits down the throat of her next door, I was sitting up in my bed when my surgeon came breezing onto the ward. Cheery as ever, I noted.

She asked how I was feeling and said, “Right, let’s have a look at you” before removing the strapping from around my neck.

“That’s looking fine! We’ll have you back in clinic on Friday to have half the staples removed then the remainder can come out on Saturday” she smiled.

“So, what did you end up doing?” and why does it feel like my lungs are on fire?

“Well, I had a look at the left hand side first because that’s where the scan showed the growth. What we thought was a growth on your left inferior parathyroid was actually on your SUPERIOR parathyroid, so I took that out, then had a look around. I took something out that I thought was you left inferior parathyroid and had it looked at in frozen section, but it came back as being thymus tissue, so I took out your thymus gland too,” her hand gestured to her chest, her CHEST, “you don’t need it when you’re an adult. I didn’t bother going into the right hand side because there’s a chance that something might grow there when you’re older and it’d only cause complications down the road if I went in there now.”

Yes, but what if you’re not around if I need surgery in the future? I trust you, you’re really good.

After a few more pleasantries, we agreed that I could go home that day… and have two weeks off sick leave “Well, the weather’s improving, you might as well take two weeks.”

Please, come and get me out of here
I arranged for Mother to come and collect me at 1pm, got changed into my outdoor clothes and sat expectedly in the chair next to the bed as the activity of the ward time-lapsed around me.

My mum arrived to collect me and, after saying my thankyous to the staff, I started the long shuffle to the car. For the first time in many years, Mum could keep up with me as we located her trusty red Toyota and set off on the road home.