Mood

Posted on 2 September, 2014 by Tina

I’m in a terrible mood today. It started with a bad dream, continued with a hideous journey into work followed by eight hours of exasperation at faulty software systems, ending in another vile journey home. Somebody suggested that I cycle to work. Sure! I’ll go the whole hog, get a little basket for the front of my bike so I can stop off at the boulangerie for fresh bread and pastries and roll up to work as fresh as a daisy after a nine mile ride on some of the most treacherous roads in the city.

We’re supposed to be having an Indian summer, but I missed all two hours of it because I was held prisoner in a windowless office where the only weather I’m ever aware of is rain as it batters down on the timpanic roof that covers the building’s atrium. Other than that, I am cocooned in a soulless, airless hell where, if I sit still for long enough, the lights dim and I get plunged into darkness.

Within a day of returning to work my back has started aching again, my permafrown has returned.

The dream I had last night has been with me all day too; thoughts of past betrayals coming back to haunt me out of the blue.

Frustrations with bad traffic, work technology and my own personal failures have put me into a bad humour and I’m feeling snarly and miserable.

But this time of year scares me as I anticipate the darkness and the cold, never knowing quite how badly I’ll react to it all. There’s a strong possibility that my recent depression has had a physiological cause which has now been rectified and I will be fine this winter, but I only have the past few years to go on and so I am naturally apprehensive as the days shorten noticeably.

I should embrace the winter months, starting with Bonfire Night. Standing in front of a raging bonfire, holding a sausage while fireworks explode above me. Looking up as the smoke clears to reveal a starry sky on a crisp November night. Walks in the woods, kicking through the fallen leaves as the sun starts to set at 3.30pm. Frost that persists all day on hard surfaces. Big jumpers and scarves, warming casseroles and the autumn TV schedule. Yes! I can see how that would be lovely.

But what’s the reality? The temperature hovering around 10ºC, high winds and torrential rain. That’s what we get. And that ruins everything. And the TV schedule isn’t that good when X Factor yields the same ridiculous stories each year while one contestant becomes a tabloid hate figure.

Work becomes more stressful and the journey gets worse as December approaches. And as December approaches, you resign yourself to spending another festive period on your own, putting a brave face on things, putting on parties for the family, but they’re really for yourself.

And at the back of your mind, you tell yourself, just see it through to March; things start to feel better in March.

Perfect timing

Posted on 14 August, 2014 by Tina

As I set off to take the little dog for his walk down the woods, I looked up at the sky: after a sunny afternoon, the clouds had been gathering and the sky was getting darker. We take the car to the local country park because it’s a little too far to walk. On our approach, the rain started spotting on the windscreen and within a few minutes of our walk around the lake, it was raining heavily.

I was dressed entirely inappropriately without a coat.

Some of our circuit was sheltered partially by a canopy of trees, but it was, on the whole, pretty wet. We encountered fellow sufferers on our way round. Our canine companions didn’t mind one iota as they ran through the muddy puddles that increased in capacity with each second. We humans though, gave each other that knowing look of despair at the duties we have to fulfil as dog owners.

“I thought the rain was going in the other direction”, remarked one man, a regular on our walks down there. His large, curly-haired beast bounding around with my scruffy, overgrown and now sodden mutt.

“Yes, I timed this perfectly!” I responded as he ran on ahead.

Perfect bloody timing! I was drenched. We got back to the car and I buckled him in. He wasn’t happy and I knew he hated me for taking him out in the rain.

“Why couldn’t you bring me out an hour earlier when it was nice and dry, Mummy, you fucking bitch?”

Well, little Rocky, yes, it would’ve been nice to have a nice dry walk and for you not to have got the inside of my car soaking wet when you had a shake after jumping onto the seat, of course it would. But look at this, you didn’t notice this because you’re a pea-brained dog. If we’d come out an hour earlier, I wouldn’t have seen this. And this, dear little dog, as far as I’m concerned, was perfect timing.

Life in the refugee camp

Posted on 6 August, 2014 by Tina

I went to a festival this weekend! This presented a number of challenges:

My sister, her boyfriend, my niece…
… camping…
… in the same tent…
… a terrible weather forecast…
… my impending period…
… chemical toilets…
… recent withdrawal of nicotine…
… thousands of people…
… all sorts of other unknowns…
… my natural tendency to get extremely stressed due to all of the above

The festival started on Friday, taking place about an hour’s drive away in Cheshire. The rain was due to start at about 8.30am, so I’d suggest we set off before 7am to give us chance to get there and erect the tent before the weather took a turn for the worse. I got to my sister’s for 7am… we left at 8am, in separate cars. As the motorway took me into Warrington, the spots of rain started to hit my windscreen. I pulled my windscreen wiper down a notch, altered the control speed: intermittent slow; intermittent intermediate; intermittent fast; down again to full on.

My mood undampened by the weather, I arrived at the festival buzzing with excitement where I was guided to the furthest possible parking space from the entrance to the festival campsite. It was pissing it down. I phoned my sister to see how far away they were. “We missed the exit from the M56 and now we’ve come to day parking instead of festival camping”. I hung up and trudged up the hill to pick up my pre-ordered trolley. By the time I’d unloaded the car and got everything piss-wet through, I saw them arrive. Dragging the laden trolley uphill, I met them at the festival entrance where we exchanged our tickets for wrist bands (me, with a festival wristband!) and made our way into the camping area to find our pitch.

Setting up camp

Whether it was wise or not, I chose a spot directly beneath a tannoy, next to a power generator and only a few yards from the massed banks of the chemical toilets. We set to work. Well, I stood around being generally useless while Chris directed us all

Take. Tube. A.

But eventually, with me doing very little to help, it was up, and we managed to get our stuff in still relatively dry.

Ta-DAAAAH!

The voice of the Scottish man came over the tannoy: “Oh God. Oh Jesus CHRIST!” He sounded remarkably like Sergeant Howie. “The crossing points will remain open until 1.15pm. I repeat, the crossing points will remain open until 1.15pm”. We were, of course at Carfest 2014, which was located at the Oulton Park motor racing circuit. We had ten minutes to make our wellied-feet over the racing track and into the festival site before the cars started flying around the track for the afternoon session.

Once into the festival ground, my little niece spotted the fairground rides – big wheel, helter skelter, bouncy inflatables. “Can I have a go on…” name it, she wanted to go on it. But that was the idea of taking her, to let her have a new experience like none of us had enjoyed when we were little.

The throbbing of engines

We made our way around the site. Drooled over some beautiful new cars on the trade stands; admired the Aston Martins from afar, all the time having one eye and an ear on the race track that surrounded us. Supercars, Formula 1 cars, ridiculous cars, rally cars, muscle cars and cars from films paraded around the track in their groups as the massed crowds looked on in admiration and bewilderment. Eyes took to the skies, prompted by the throbbing whir of Royal Navy Blackcat helicopter engines above us, our gazes captured by their skill and the ever blackening skies.

Rain

And the rain started again. We made our way to the Big Top, one of the many tents that provided various types of kids’ activities, but more importantly – SHELTER from the thunderous downpour that was pelting the festival. Kids’ entertainment. I was in a living hell. Surrounded by middle class parents and their offspring, engulfed by noise, in an oversized plastic bag. I recited my mantra: “I am in my happy place… I am in my idea of fucking hell on earth”

I checked the programme. What sort of shit were they going to inflict on us? Dangerous and deadly what? I sighed to myself. BRACE BRACE BRACE! People, busy people, ran onto the stage carrying tupperware boxes of increasing size, the largest one being the size of a small shed. What the hell is this? The anticipation of the crowd grew; excitement fell to silence as an enthusiastic man bounded onto the stage: “Hi, I’m NICK!!!!”

And I’m going! I gazed at the exit, the rain was still falling in torrents outside. Jesus! Go out and get drowned or stay in and risk murdering hundreds of primary school children… well, their parents.

And then it started. Nick, took us through a natural history of those critters that have been on this planet for millions of years: millipedes; giant snails; poisonous spiders; massive stick insects… and snakes. It was pitched perfectly for the children in the audience; they LOVED it. It provided a taster for the main Bugfest tent where they could go and learn about creepies at their leisure. And it gave us our first sighting of the famous charity mascot for the event, which was all in aid of the Children in Need charity:

I’ll save The Flying Seagulls for another time.

Once the rain had eased off, it was time for Tina to go and have a look at some of the beautiful cars that members of owners’ clubs were displaying in the paddock area. I trudged (I was wearing wellies) passed the Monster Truck – want one – and over towards the cars, guided by the smell of exhaust fumes. It was at this point that heavens opened.

Fuck me, after all the dry weekends we’d had, this had to happen the weekend that I’d organised to go fucking camping, with a period, at a fucking festival. FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

This was real rain:

But it stopped after a few minutes and what followed was a long dry spell, and this was the pattern of weather for the Friday and the Saturday of the trip. More importantly, the evenings were dry and bright and this meant that we could enjoy what I’d been looking forward to the most: the music!

Music for dead people

Carfest is ideal for those of my age, it caters to our many interests and panders to the cultural references that were formed when we were growing up, so there was headline music from bands from our formative years (Erasure, Simple Minds, Texas, 10cc, Jools Holland), tribute acts to middle-aged dad favourites (Coldpla[ce], [One night of} Queen, Kings [ov] Leon) as well as some established BBC Radio 2 favourite Seasick Steve (simply awesome), along with younger artists like Scouting for Girls (MUCH better than anybody could imagine, brilliant in fact), Eliza Doolittle, Tom Odell, Jack Savoretti and the like.

I never thought I’d enjoy the festival atmosphere, but once I’d managed to negotiate the oldies at the periphery who were sitting in their camping chairs, and made it to the main crowd in front of the main stage, I was absorbed by the enthusiasm of the crowd and the loudness of the music. It was BRILLIANT.

My niece, I think was a little overwhelmed by the crowds and the noise, until of course, she did that thing to which all young girls seemed to grow accustomed: she sat on our shoulders.

From this vantage point, she soon got into the swing of Queen’s Radio Gaga hand clap salute, along with Simple Minds’ “Hey, Hey, Hey, HEY!” fist pump. She even managed to blag a shoulder mount from a very lovely and enthusiastic man when all our backs had given out. She’ll do well when she’s attending V, Parkfest, “Glasto” and whatever other social gatherings of that ilk take her fancy when she’s older. Start ’em young.

Sunshine on a rainy day

Seasick Steve

Scouting for Girls

Hey, hey, hey, HEY! Simple Minds

Erasure

Chris Evans revs up the crowd

Ridiculously expensive booze

The Blitz spirit

Back at the campsite, things had taken a turn for the worse. I was drunk, and decided to have just one more glass from the box of Aussie red that I’d taken with me. Added to this, my airbed had deflated completely. I reckoned that if I reinflated it before I went to bed, I’d fall asleep and not notice that it had gone down until morning. Needless to say, I woke up in agony, hungover and in need of a pee, water and nurofen at 4am. In addition, the cramps in my lower abdomen were telling me that it was here! Joy!

I deployed my secret weapon – no, not a Tampax, a one of these:

Yes I know I need my eye bags doing, but it seems that I’ve found a way of covering up my frown lines.

And crawled my way to the nearby bank of chemical toilets. It was using these things that I dreaded most about the whole experience, but they’re actually fine so long as they’re maintained properly and these were great. It got to the stage where I found the pumping of the disinfectant release handle and associated squirting noise rather therapeutic, although not at 4am when my head was pounding and I was still half drunk.

One thing that did happen quite a bit was women not locking the doors – green sign = vacant = open the door = oops! Thick bitches. One vision that scarred me was one poor cow puking up in one. Must’ve been a dodgy sausage. Or the fact that the water kept going off so we couldn’t wash our hands or brush our teeth. And those Syrians think they’ve got it bad! They want to try living through what I went through, what we all went through and we laughed about it. Because we are British, and that’s the British way.

The Lamb National

One final thing that absolutely thrilled me about my weekend was The Lamb National. Yes, that’s right, racing hardwick sheep, over jumps. The funniest thing ever.

So, that was a very long summary of my first ever festival weekend and camping weekend. After scoffing at festival types for many years, I can admit that I now see what the fuss is about, I can also maintain my assertions that you have to be prepared for third world living conditions and permanent back injuries, but so long as you know the adversities that you might face, then you can prepare for them.

Lessons:

Take salt, oil, washing up liquid
When somebody says “take tea bags” they mean it
Waterproofs make for a happier life
Wellies are instruments of torture
No matter how much people might mock your Crocs, take the fuckers
Spare air bed
Spare air bed
Spare air bed
Spare air bed

Women glow

Posted on 9 June, 2013 by Tina

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that we’ve had summer. The past two weeks or so have erased the memories of the cold easterly chill that cursed us and made our bones shiver for so long. There has been warmth and sunshine. The nation is invigorated… and burnt to a fucking crisp.

After spending a few hours after work and most of the past two weekends exposing as much as myself as is decent to those wonderful, warming ultraviolet rays, I am carrying a healthy glow. My intention this weekend had been to get sunburnt to within an inch of my life, but sense took over and I saved myself the agony with a good covering of factor 8. I don’t think you can get factor 8 any more.

The smell of sun cream on my skin stimulates such joy. Then I rub it into my eyes and the resultant chemical reaction between Piz Buin and contact lenses causes my corneas to melt. But I don’t care, the tears don’t worry me because my ageing skin is protected for a full day. Apart from the skin on my nose, where the sun cream gets rubbed off pretty much as soon as it’s applied because of my need to constantly clear my nasal passages.

So here in bed, there is pleasant warmth radiating from my, hrrm, not sure what colour they are, “tanned” bits.

The little dog doth explodeth
As I entered my house after coming home from work on Friday afternoon, my joy at welcoming the sunny weekend was immediately turned to dread as a familiar smell hit my senses.

“Oh God, he’s pood”

I went upstairs and approached the bathroom, which is the usual scene of such crimes, to be met with faecal carnage the likes of which I’ve never encountered. The little dog had had a major sickness-induced explosive evacuation in the bathroom. My CSI skills concluded that, in an act of desperation, he’d had to poo in the bathroom, then again in the bathroom, and some more. He thought he was safe, so moved to the landing, where his explosive diarrhoea hit the carpet and the wall, then into my bedroom… where he threw up.

I never knew a dog could projectile vomit until Friday afternoon. I never knew a little dog could produce so much awful smelling poo from one little anus.

I’ve spent a good deal of this weekend pursuing him with a toilet roll and some wet wipes so I could clean his nasty little backside before he rubbed more germ-ridden shit on the carpets and soft furnishings.

And of course throughout all of this, he was trying to clean his own bum, so I had two shitty ends to deal with.

What on earth could have caused my poor little baby to get so poorly? Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that he’s a stupid fuck who prefers to drink stagnant water instead of the fresh stuff I carry around for him while we’re out on our walks.

And then there’s his love of rolling in stuff. Yesterday he surpassed himself with a dead fish. When I bathed him, the magic bubbles released from his fur: general dirt; poo; sand; grass; moss; fish remnants; goose poo; fox poo and la piece de resistance: a cricket.

GOD!

If EVER I think for one second about getting another dog, I will remind myself of this weekend.

Dry the rain

Posted on 14 April, 2013 by Tina

In the second week of April, the temperatures finally attained a level that is more fitting of the season. And so it came to pass that we ~~basked in the glorious sunshine~~ dodged the wind and rain all weekend.

There’s always a trade-off: freezing cold temperatures, but beautiful sunshine; or relative warmth with wind and rain. It’s just the weather, we’re used to it being unreliable and unpredictable in this country, yet we still go on about it, mainly because it’s fucking shit.

Today though, I was not going to be defeated. The forecast told me it was going to be windy and cloudy with a slight chance of rain in the morning. It mattered because I was determined to dry my washing on the line. I pegged out my whites, which means non-darks, and observed the skies as the strong winds blew ever blackening clouds towards me and my clean washing.

I’ve never been so stressed in my life. So much so that, while my clothes dried eventually, they fell victim to having cigarette smoke blown onto them as I stood sentry in the yard, waiting for the precipitation to form heavier water droplets that signalled the onset of an unholy downpour. It didn’t happen.

Maybe next time I should wait for less perilous weather conditions before risking a stress-induced migraine and emphysema while drying my laundry.

Punch bag face
I’ve just waxed my moustache and plucked my eyebrows. I look like I’ve been punched in the face or attacked by a herd of angry wasps.

Who decides on those words for groups of things? What are the rules there? I suppose “herd” speaks for itself, i.e. anything that can be herded. But aren’t they called flocks of sheep and flocks of birds? Packs of dogs, packs of crisps. If you get prides of lions, do you get prides of sealions? Murder of crows? What? P-p-p-p-p-pickup a penguins.

Jeez.

Below the line
After whinging about how people in this country whinge about not having enough money for food and how they should learn to budget properly, plan and cook meals and that, I’m going to be doing something to try to put my money where my mouth is. From 29th April to 3rd May, I’ll be participating in the Live Below the Line challenge to try to raise some funds for UNICEF and to highlight the problems of poverty in the developing world. All I have to do is use no more than £5 for all my food and meals for five days. EASY! Or it least I thought it would be until I considered:

No coffee

No Pepsi Max

No store cupboard items

No fizzy water

No cigs (not a bad thing)

I went to Aldi today and was encouraged by their 19p packets of spaghetti. Let’s face it, I’m going to be living off pasta and beans on toast for five days. I’ll also be comatose and headachy through caffeine and cigarette withdrawal. But it’s a challenge that I will look forward to; this is a very worthy cause and I’m not going to be whinging my way through it. And it’s only five days, after which I have the luxury of being able to return to my relatively affluent lifestyle, many millions never have that opportunity.

See through
Another week of being prodded and poked beckons as the ongoing saga of misbehaving metabolism enters stage two: secondary diagnostics. First on the list is another blood test tomorrow. Tuesday I get to have low-level radiation fired at my bones to see if they’re still bones or whether they’re turning into sponge. I have to lie still while they do the scan, I’ll pretend that I’m on a sunny beach somewhere. Wednesday I’m back at the hospital to see the endocrinologist, but my DEXA scan results won’t be ready, so it’ll be a massive waste of time. Such bloody fun.

In the meantime, I can’t donate blood, yet I’m being constantly bombarded by the blood people wanting O neg donors. Yes, yes, I KNOW stocks are low, but I can’t help at the moment because there’s actually nothing wrong with me.

One positive aspect of all this is that I know my heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, pancreas and bladder are all absolutely fine. My duodenum, on the other hand, might be on the verge of bursting its contents into my peritoneum, which might kill me. But then at least, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether it’s a good drying day.

Rain

Posted on 9 March, 2013 by Tina

The rain is back.

It could be said, should be said, that we in the UK should count ourselves lucky for our climate that gives us our green and pleasant land. But when we live in times when we’ve not really had a summer for six years, when last year summer never happened and billions of pounds worth of damage was caused by flooding, we’d be justified in airing a grievance at the Jet Stream.

Having enjoyed weeks of dry and sunny days, the re-emergence of the wet stuff has mercifully only announced itself as a bit of drizzle, but it’s still enough to make you curse. Curse the walks with the little dog that will again be an assault course of mud, curse squeaking windscreen wipers, curse the interruption to the beautiful late winter sunshine that we’d been enjoying.

When all is said and done though, there’s something quite comforting to have the rain falling against the bedroom window at night time. It insulates us from noises that might otherwise interrupt our slumber, providing a kind of white noise that hypnotises the brain.

It also means that the dickheads who’d normally limp their way home noisily from the pub hurry along instead, forfeiting their customary shouting for the sake of getting home quickly.

This is me trying to see the positive side of one of the most miserable aspects of living in the UK. It’s not working. There’s enough water in this sodden land of ours to allow us a six month drought. I long for a long, hot summer that stretches from April until October. I want to get sunburnt. I want nights when I can’t sleep because it’s too hot. I want to have to use the air conditioning in the car and have my eyes stinging through wearing the contact lenses that allow me to use sunglasses like normal people do, rather than switching between normal and prescription specs.

Then again, normal people wear sunglasses on their heads indoors. They wear their sunglasses on their heads after dark. Even worse, they wear them on the backs of their heads. Why? I don’t get it. The sun goes down, put your sunglasses away. Nobs.

Perhaps I’m just jealous because my curly hair won’t allow me to be part of that cool gang who can do this. I once had a very uncomfortable hour long journey home from work with a pair of sunglasses dangling from the side of my head after they’d got caught up in my hair when I tried to push them up onto my head. “GET THESE FUCKING THINGS OFF ME!” I screamed as I ran into my parents’ house. They thought I was being attacked by a swarm of angry wasps until they saw the comedy unravelling before their eyes.

It must be appendicitis… or an aortic aneurysm… or something REALLY serious
My sleep was disturbed in the early hours of dawn today when I awoke with very uncomfortable abdominal pain. The possibilities cycled through my sleep, hypochondriac mind:

Period pain? No, the time’s not right and it’s in the wrong place

Need to go poopy? Too high up for that… oops… that trump was a bit of a gamble

Food poisoning? Definitely not – no other symptoms consistent with this

Appendicitis? Now you’re talking! It seems to be in the correct location for early appendicitis, but still no temperature, no sicky feeling

Kidney stones? I’ve no idea what the symptoms are, so yes, it could be

Aortic aneurysm? OHMYFUCKINGGOD!

As I struggled with the pain and drifted in and out of sleep, nothing brought relief. I was staying with friends and asked if there was any ibuprofen to be had. Yes, thank goodness, but as I was abut to take them, that awful sensation of hypersalivation and a cold sweat rose from my neck and into my mouth and head. Sick? I’m going to be sick?? I positioned myself in readiness, but the wave of nausea passed over me as quickly as it had started. The pain relief was taken and I settled back into my bed. And then it was all over. Gone. Within ten minutes, it was like the previous five hours hadn’t been real.

I’m guessing it wasn’t an aneurysm. Not this time at least.

I’ll just about survive to see me through the spring and into the summer. I’m hoping that the government has been working on a secret device to reverse the North Sea wind farms and blow the Jet Stream back up to where it belongs.

Winter wonderland

Posted on 26 January, 2013 by Tina

It’s finally snowed here in Bolton, quite a lot too. There’s about four inches of the stuff settled out there and the tarmac is no longer visible on the road. It’ll all be gone by the end of tomorrow once the rain comes to wash it away, but nonetheless, it’s been a pretty sight.

Tonight I discovered that, while their grip is amazing, Crocs are totally inadequate in the snow. Full of holes, you see. I also discovered, or confirmed to myself, that I need to learn a language. Parce que le weekend (here we go), I tend to try to use my best Franglais on Fridays. Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais c’est le weekend, n’est pas??

Anyway, even my Franglais is tainted by Italian, as my French had been when I was studying the language properly at school all those years ago. French is such a doddle, but I was always pulled up for saying un po (Italian) instead of un (on) peu (French) and getting days of the week mixed up. Of course, since it was us who won the war, all of Europe should really be speaking English as a first language, but those bloody Frenchies are so obstinate with their “Non, non, non, non, non!!!!” to everything. Saying that though, their “Non, non, non, non, non!!!!” attitude has helped them preserve an identity that we should envy. Maybe they realised they had something worth preserving.

But that’s my view on Europe: they have better food than us, better weather, and they don’t take shit from Brussels. Maybe if Britain didn’t take shit from Brussels, we’d be happier with our relationship with all those stupid sodding countries that never vote for us in Eurovision.

Samedi
Tomorrow, I need to practise peeing into a jug in readiness for collecting all of my wee on Sunday. What a drag, but it’s for my own good.

I won’t be doing much else tomorrow apart from clearing snow and doing housework. The latter activity is needed desperately: on Christmas Day as we say at the table to eat dinner, I noticed a cobweb hanging from the dining room ceiling right above the table. Father Christmas might as well have forced his way into the house and pood on the table, the embarrassment it caused me. So I shall be out with my feather duster, no doubt cursing lots.

For now though, I need to sleep in order to allow my dear old liver and kidneys a better chance of clearing the bottle of wine I had tonight.

Bon nuit, mes amies. Or whatever.

The Snoring Dog

It's all just stuff

Tag Archives: Weather

Mood

Perfect timing

Life in the refugee camp

Women glow

Dry the rain

Rain

Winter wonderland

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