Tag Archives: McMini

1 Feb 2020 · 2:19 pm

Chip off the old block …

This week has been busy. Much going on anyway and then The Wrong Stuff arrived for audio proofing. Woot. More on that and the audio project generally in a week or two.

What I should be writing about, this week, is my new release, Nothing To See Here, which is out a week today on 8th Feb. But 8th Feb is also Dad’s birthday, I’m sort of releasing it then, in his honour, so I’ve kind of been thinking about that this week, too.

This last Sunday, I went to church and because McOther had Stuff To Do, elsewhere, I took McMini. McMini is pretty good on his own for a few minutes while I whizz up to the post box or nip to Tesco’s but I don’t like to leave him on his own for long periods of time – one and a half hours while I do church and then stuff my face with biscuits and bend everyone’s ear at coffee afterwards – for example.

As you know, McMini is a bit of a live wire and also has the same sense of the ridiculous as I do. When they do all the high church stuff with the cope and the incense round the altar on high days and holidays, and the acolytes follow and hold the arm of the cope out of the way as the celebrant does their thing, I immediately think of James Brown. James Brown used to do many encores and he’d pretend to be overcome with exhaustion and his acolytes would help him onto the stage, where he’d perform again … all part of the theatre. And he wore a cloak sometimes, which sort of helps make it feel similar. This is probably Blasphemy but then again, since Christ was not above sarcasm, in spades, and clearly had a sense of humour, I am hoping that, when I head pearly gates-wards he’ll intervene on my behalf about this one if things are looking a bit dicey for me. Not that it’ll do me much good, there’s an awful lot of other stuff – But I’m wandering off topic again.

Taking McMini to church I am aware that it’s a long service, and he doesn’t always enjoy the hymns (I like a good shouty hymn but I’m a half trained classical musician). McMini is beginning to enjoy classical music, and he will, because as a musician, he will end up listening to everything because if you are musical, that’s what you do. But I feel it’s important not to force it. The trick is for him to know it’s there and he’ll learn to enjoy it in time. He’s beginning to rather like opera … just as I reach the point in my life where it’s pretty certain I’ll never go to Glyndebourne again. Sigh.

Anyway, there we are in church. And for the first bit he was a little bored, then, in the prayers, he took it quite seriously doing all the responses etc.

The jumper tribble … octopus? starfish?

Then as we got to the sermon his attention began to wander again. It was actually rather a good one but I’d seen this coming and my theory is that, it’s better to behave a bit badly in church, for us to have a laugh together and for him to enjoy the experience, than to make him be ‘good’ and put him off going for the rest of his life. Because even if he’s a bit bored, if he spends most of the time giggling, it’s going to be a memory of happy bored when he looks back on it later. So it was that I picked the larger fluff tribbles off my jumper and made them into a little creature. This was the jumping off point for a lot of mirth.

McMini kept on waiting until I wasn’t looking and then knocking it onto the floor. Then the longer I took to notice the more giggly he got, especially if I trod on it a couple of times. This is definitely one of those events where you had to be there so you’re just going to have to believe me when I tell you it was funny. McMini is a naturally gifted clown, keenly vigilant for any opportunity to get a laugh and not one to let a single one slip by. Hence the wee joke at Dad’s funeral. Eventually the blue furry critter lost both its eyes and looked very sorry for itself. Obviously, there was also banter. I can’t remember much of it but … it was there, and there was a lot of giggling about that, too. Or at least a lot of shaking, going red and crying while we tried not to make any noise. It wasn’t stealth giggling, but we gave laughing in silence our best shot. It was only after the service that I appreciated that it wasn’t just us who’d been giggling. There’s a lovely lady who usually sits behind me with her Mum and they had also been enjoying the … er hem … show.

The mum flashed us a beaming, twinkly smile said, ‘It is rather a long service for a young boy isn’t it?’

And I smiled back and said, ‘Um… yes,’ and left it at that.

Then the daughter said she wished she could have heard what we were saying so she could be in on the joke but we were too far away. Well … at least we weren’t making too much noise, then.

What was rather lovely about it all, apart from the fact that the other parishoners, were clearly far more happy to see that I’d brought McMini than they were worried about any behavioural deficiencies, was that it reminded me so much of Church with my parents. Dad giggling about the awful Victorian poetry again, or pointing out the dirty bits. I had no idea what detumescence was until my father pointed out a line that reminded him of it in a hymn. Although once again, St John’s excelled itself with rather good poetry, and a couple of tunes taken from the Scottish Psalter and an Orlando Gibbons thrown in … all the kind of elegant, symmetrical, mathematical music that I love.

This morning, McMini had arranged to meet some friends in town. I wasn’t sure when but I felt that, possibly, meet up time was pending when there was a sudden sense of urgent activity and then I could hear McMini saying on the phone, ‘I’m running a bit late … I’ll be with you soon … It won’t take that long to walk up there will it? Where would I meet you then? OK.’

It occurred to me that if he was going to the other end of town, he might appreciate a lift. So I popped my head round the door and asked if all was well. He admitted that he’d agreed to meet his friends at ten fifteen but that he’d suddenly realised at about ten thirteen that he was still in his pyjamas.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘So … did you make this arrangement at about half past nine think you’d just do a couple of things first and lose track of time?’ I asked him.

He no longer throws me an ‘are you telepathic?’ look when I do this sort of thing because he is old enough to understand about inherited traits and that he’s just a chip off the old block. Instead he gave me a sort of small, knowing smile and said, ‘Yes.’

Immediately I remembered the number of times my father had forgotten he was supposed to be somewhere, or that he’d invited someone to lunch. Mum became a consummate expert at Not Looking Surprised, when people turned up to lunch unannounced and stretching meals for larger numbers of people than anticipated. I suspect there was also a reason we seldom ate before one or quarter past. Plenty of time to make extra arrangements if surprise guests suddenly turned up.

One particular time, I remember my uncle ringing and asking where Dad was. I asked where he was supposed to be. At the Rotary Club lunch, my uncle explained. Ah. Dad was, at this point, in Worthing, and when they set off, he and Mum had said they might stay and have lunch there. Obviously I didn’t tell my uncle this, instead I said,

‘Oh yes, he did say he was going to lunch, where was it again?’

My uncle named a hotel in Haywards Heath. I explained that Mum and Dad had popped into worthing.

‘He’s probably lost track of time, but I’m sure he’ll be with you shortly,’ I said, praying that this was true.

I managed to pump my uncle reasonably subtly for information as to where Dad had to go, whether Mum was invited too (no) and if he needed change for parking. I say I was subtle. I probably wasn’t but my uncle was good enough to play along with the pretence.

Luckily, Dad and Mum returned a few seconds after I’d finished talking to my uncle. I tipped Dad off but I’d forgotten the dress code. None of us were very up on the Rotary so we hummed and haad about what he should wear and decided that jacket and tie would probably be OK. So he quickly put a tie on, grabbed a decent jacket, leapt into the car and sped off to join his long suffering brother. I think he arrived half an hour late, in the end, which wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately, everyone else was wearing suits.

On the up side apparently the feedback was very good and one fellow Rotarian told my uncle,

‘Your brother is a very cool customer. Not only did he give a wonderful speech, but I was sitting near him, and I saw him write it during the pudding course.’

So there was McMini, late already because, like his mother and grandfather before him he had, ‘lost track of time’. Naturally, I offered him a lift.

We grabbed his phone and keys and I gave him a fiver. Then I went to open the garage and left him putting on his shoes and getting his bag.

‘Don’t forget to shut the door,’ I said. Obviously, it’s one of those ones that, if you shut it, locks itself.

We got into the car and I managed to get him to his meeting point by twenty past, so he was only five minutes late. When I arrived home, I discovered he’d left the back door wide open. Blimey he’s a chip off the old block.

As I watch my son following in his grandfather’s footsteps, and mine, I think a small penny dropped somewhere. I am brain fogged, for sure, but it’s a lot better since I started the HRT and while I may feel like I’m demented, perhaps it’s more of a case of being like my dad. Maybe it’s not that the numbers of instances when I’ve ‘lost track of time’ or just forgotten something that are increasing. Maybe I just feel like they are because, as an adult, doing this kind of stuff correctly is more important.

Maybe.

Which reminds me. I’ve a new book out next week and it’s available for pre-order. If you’re interested here’s the info click on the title or the picture to visit the links page:

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Nothing To See Here, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 2

It’s midwinter and preparations for the biggest religious festival in the K’Barthan year are in full swing. Yes, even though, officially, religious activity has been banned, no-one’s going to ignore Arnold, The Prophet’s Birthday, especially not Big Merv. He orders The Pan of Hamgee to deliver the traditional Prophet’s Birthday gift to his accountants and lawyers. As usual, The Pan has managed to elicit the unwanted attention of the security forces. Can he make the delivery and get back to the Parrot and Screwdriver pub in time for an unofficial Prophet’s Birthday celebration with his friends?

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25 Jan 2020 · 11:58 am

Quality can’t be rushed …

This week my son invented something called the White Wee Crew. Mwahahahrgh!

NO! You filthy ones at the back. This is about drinking vast quantities of water!

Yep. If you drink enough you end up doing what he used to call a ‘silver wee’ or one that the normals would call ‘clear’. He then changed it to the White Wee Club but has decided that the White Wee Crew is better. He’s read somewhere that being hydrated keeps your brain switched on. I believe that is A THING. So, he’s been proudly coming home and telling me he’s still a member of the White Wee Crew. I love the way his entire view of life is so completely non standard. And aimed to amuse; himself and others, but he seems unfazed if it’s just himself.

Weird square eye thing … eeeek!

Scary!

One of the delights about having a kid is what a complete giggle we have. Normally we’re talking bottom gags here but sometimes other stuff. The comedy of tiny noises, odd squeaks, floorboards that can be reliably walked on to sound like a fart, well yes, more bottom gags there, I suppose. But if anything makes a strange or surreal noise, no matter how quiet or insignificant, I’ll hear it and one look at McMini and I know he will have heard and think it’s funny too. From a squeaky hinge to McCat going mad for cheese. Any sound is fair game. McOther is able to be equally arcane but seems to derive more enjoyment out of watching us do it than indulging in arcanity (is that even a word) arcaneness, himself. Then there was the night at McOther’s parents house where McMini and I spent about half an hour in their en-suite positioning ourselves so we could take a selfie with the reflections from the bright strip light surrounding the mirror reflected in our eyes. We thought we looked like robots, or perhaps, I thought, that thing that happens to your eyes in Dune when you ride the worms. He hasn’t seen or read Dune yet and my memory is very sketchy but I tried to explain.

It does look weird. CF photos.

McMini is naturally funny, one of those people who is going to be funny whatever he tries to do so has decided to ham it up. I’ve always felt that the trick was to make it look deliberate but I suspect I ham it up, myself. He’s definitely a chip off the old block. Or perhaps he’s just watched my coping mechanism and decided it’ll do for now. The other evening having implored him, with increasing desperation, to remove his socks I finally succeeded.

‘If you throw those at me, I warn you, I’ll get really cross,’ I told him, anticipating his thoughts, mainly because it was exactly what my brother or I’d have done at his age.

Needless to say, the little so and so threw them at my face. So having told him I’d go into orbit, I did. Except that I was doing it because I needed him to Learn A Lesson rather than because I was actually that cross – although it is completely fucking vile and I wish he wouldn’t do it. McMini looked momentarily crushed and protested at my turning into Ogre Mummy without due warning. I told him he’d jolly well had due warning and that he should have taken heed. But then he picked up on the faux nature of my rage and smiled. I desperately tried to maintain a Stern Exterior but failed and found myself laughing.

It took me straight back to being a kid and doing the exact same thing to diffuse my father’s rage. There were incidences, when he’d gone beyond a certain point, when you didn’t do this, but it did work most of the time. If he can see what we’re up to my Dad must be laughing his head off. I hear him in so many of the things I say to McMini. It’s not that I mean to copy his parenting style, although I reckon he was a pretty good Dad so I probably wouldn’t go far wrong if I did. It’s just because I’m like him. And as I tell McMini, of an evening, with increasing frustration, ‘Will you go to BED!’ As he cavorts about the place like a lunatic clown and I desperately try not to laugh so he stops and does as I ask, I hear my father saying the exact same thing to my brother and I, all those years ago. And I can’t help but smile.

Though I have always thought of myself as a bit of a Daddy’s girl, I’ve always felt that I was very much more like Mum, I have Dad’s soft heart, I think, but I am definitely able to override it more easily than him, or at least I was. One of the things about his illness and death is that, coming out the other side of them, I no longer can.

Then again, as far as taking after one or another parent goes, I guess the point is moot. They were both as maverick and non-standard as each other. My father revelled in the eccentric and in pricking the bubble of the pompous, but it was my mother who dragged me into a cupboard to hide from the over-chatty house matron, who popped in as we were about to go out. Yeh … there probably isn’t much in it, between the two of them.

Trying to parent my wayward, but good natured son, I guess I’m beginning to understand what my poor parents, especially, were up against. What makes me laugh is that there is so much of my father in McMini, too, that it’s hilarious. He has a great deal of McOther in him too, jeez you don’t discipline McMini, you open negotiations. It’s really terrible, but I would bet his father was exactly the same. He always drives a hard bargain, too. It’s interesting, he’s kind of cheeky but at the same time, he’s treating me as his equal, which is really rather lovely.

He’s also a kind little lad. The other day I took him metal detecting. McOther was away on business and there was a dig and I really wanted to go. I was aware he might not want to come so we agreed he could bring along his lap top and sit in the car playing games if he wanted to. We had a great morning out. He enjoyed it and he found some things. Worked out the exact spot and got them out. At the end, he told me that he’d had a lovely day and that even if we’d remembered the lap top, he didn’t think he’d have used it. He told me it was all the better because he’d been dreading it.

‘Oh dear, not totally dreading it were you?’ I asked.

‘Yes Mum, completely, but I couldn’t not come. I knew you hadn’t been for ages and you so wanted to go. I couldn’t stand in your way. How mean would that be?’

I thought that was pretty impressive for an eleven year old. So much like his father, and also so much like his grandfather.

Another area I feel a lot of the Dad influence is in cheesy stuff. Dad derived a great deal of hilarity from bad poetry, especially hymns. There were times in church when I could just lean forward and look along the row at Dad with a bit of a twinkle and he’d turn to me with a pained expression and we’d start giggling. We both tended to be a bit vague and sing the wrong verses in the wrong order, if they have them lined up so you go across you can guarantee we’d end up reading down, and vice versa. But McMini gets my hilarity at some of the terribly bad, sentimental Victorian poetry you find in hymns as well. He doesn’t come to church so often now, I don’t want to force it because he has a faith and nothing is more likely to switch that off than forcing him. And the church I go to is pretty good at picking the fabulous poetry rather than the crap stuff, anyway, but McMini, he does, sort of, get it; good and bad. I have come to poetry rather late in life, partly from school, but also, greatly, from my Dad pointing out the rousing stuff, in hymns and … well … anywhere. And then from noticing it in hymns, myself.

McMini can act, too. Really act, unlike my brother and I who are merely funny – not the same thing at all. He doesn’t, of course, he regards learning lines and attending rehearsals is far too much like hard work. Then again, as far as I can gather, so did Dad. Indeed, the old man’s louche approach to knowing lines or giving cues was legendary. Apparently you would often cover the plot points you were meant to in a scene with Dad but not necessarily in the order in which they were written or the time allocated. Sometimes he’d guess. If you were lucky, you might get enough indication, from the general gist of what he’d said, which line you were supposed to deliver in reply. There was also a lovely story a friend told about how he and Dad on stage. They were both very short sighted, but each was trying to help the other across the stage without falling off the edge, into the orchestra pit. The whole exercise was fraught with difficulty and an extra frisson of danger, because neither of them was very sure where it was.

Strangely, later in life, when Dad had Alzheimer’s, he could recite vast tracts of Shakespeare, apparently word perfectly. I’m thinking that he was probably in plays at school as a kid.

If McMini wanted to act in things, I suspect he’d be extremely good … if he could be arsed. Yes, he is so like his parents, but I see so much of my father in him, too. Dad may have died, but whether or not you believe in life after death, he lives on in us. Mwahahahaargh!

Talking about fine acting skills, the audio project is trundling along. Gareth is still coughing a bit and suffering a sore throat but he seems to be happily getting stuck into the second book. He has been surprised to discover the books are much longer than he thought, ‘another learning moment’ as he put it wryly. It sounds as if he’s been thinking, ‘bloody hell! What the fuck is going on! I should have finished this by now!’ Except I think Gareth is a bit less foul mouthed than me so he probably thought it more politely … possibly. I’ll have to get his address and send him some signed books. I suspect we may not get the whole thing done before he’s off on tour but I’m OK with that if he is. After all, quality can’t be rushed.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested, Nothing to See Here is available for preorder. If you want to know more, click here, or click on the picture.

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18 Jan 2020 · 12:18 pm

Why is life so fucking annoying?

Yeh, I know. There’s an eternal question if ever there was one. Not a great week so far. The chaos fairies are afflicting me with a vengeance. I literally cannot remember my own name, or the names of, for example, any of the ladies I go swimming with.

Everything seems to be a bit up and down. Good things happen but the frustration levels of every day existence are at an all time high. Why, I can’t fathom. I’m not sure if I’m feeling it extra specially at the moment. Maybe I am. I got the power of attorney over Mum’s finances back this week. I’ve been managing them for nearly four years, but this does make her vulnerability that bit more official. Maybe I’ve passed through the eye of the storm with the relative calm after Dad’s death, and it’s the prospect of going through something similar with Mum that’s hurting. I suppose that could be it. Or am just going through one of those phases when every single fucking thing that can go wrong does, at a point where I’m not quite as emotionally robust as usual? Hmm … could be that too.

Whatever is causing it, I’m afraid the irritation needs to be exorcised the only way I know how. Yeh, this is going to be a rant, although I’ll try to walk the line between a Basil Fawlty style funniness and poor little me. Apologies in advance if I fail on that one. And of course, as usual, there’s a certain amount of melodrama.

But seriously. Why does life have to be so fucking annoying? And why won’t the Chaos Fairies piss off?

First up, Mum’s electricity. She pays by direct debit but she’s over paid this year so they have told me they’re carrying more than £200 over to her next bill. So I have to ring them and ask for it back. At the time I phoned them, I had to do this with Mum so she could tell them it was OK for me to speak on her behalf. So yesterday, we duly rang and after pressing various buttons to navigate our way through the menu reached a message which said.

‘Our offices are currently closed for staff training. We apologise for any inconvenience this will cause. Goodbye,’ click, dialling tone.

NO, SSE. This is how it’s done,

‘We apologise that our offices are closed for training today but we will reopen on X date at X time.’

And you don’t leave customers navigating through all the bloody menus first either, wasting minutes of their precious chuffing time. Even a government department, like the Office of the Public Guardian, knows to tell you about that sort of stuff up front.

Second, I’ve been referred for a gym membership on the NHS, three months at a reduced rate to try and get my knees a bit better. Unfortunately, I sat on this for a while, I got it in the last week of November, just after Dad’s memorial. Two weeks before Christmas I rang to book an evaluation. I got an out of office reply message explaining that the lady was now away until after Christmas. I tried ringing, anyway. The answerphone message said that we would be contacted about appointments in the order we’d rung.

When the lady returned to work in January, I discovered that no, the appointments were not being allocated the way the message said, it was the usual free-for-all, post-Christmas gannet fest where the Normal Organised people ring and bag the appointments for the next four months within about three minutes of the lines opening and the rest of us are left with their pecked over, spittle-flecked remains. Bastards.

So now they’re taking bookings for February but the lady only works three days a week and of course one of them’s Wednesday. Sigh.

Double foiled then, in my efforts to get the booking in before Christmas and then in believing the message. I found this out when she sent an email saying she’d a few appointments left in January to everyone on the waiting list. I emailed back about the one I could do, which was gone, and she suggested I call and gave me the number.

I called the next day, and was told that they only had January’s appointments, that she’d already gone home and to ring the following day, which was Wednesday, of course. So I rang from Mum’s at two and discovered that she’d already gone home. The staff informed me that they’d lost the appointment sheet so I was best emailing her, I explained I had and she’d told me to ring them. They suggested I try a different email address, which bounced.

So I sent her an email saying, politely, and I hope humorously, ‘throw me a frigging bone here.’ I’ll try again on Monday. Who knows, some time in the next month, I might manage to swing things so that I remember to ring at a point when she’s actually there.

Third … sort of … Wednesday’s visit to Mum’s was good and bad. Mum was on form, but very tired after an extremely windy night – wind blowing round the house and garden banging things about, I mean, not Mum’s bum. I could go off on a tangent here about how much Mum and I laugh about farts, but luckily for you, I’ll leave that for another day.

Anyway, Mum was knackered so not as switched on as sometimes. And she kept falling asleep, which made it hard to have a conversation, but at the same time, instead of just relaxing and having a snooze, she was trying to stay awake, bless her, so she’d just drift off and I’d keep talking until I reckoned she’d gone off, get out my book and bing, she’d wake up again. So the conversation was quite weird because it happened in instalments and I had to keep reminding her what she was saying before she dozed off. At which point, on a couple of occasions, she dozed off again.

We had lunch, and it was pork chops. It was one of those days when the rinds hadn’t caught. I looked at the uncrackled rind on my plate and then at the fire, which Mum laid first thing, and which had lit itself, and was now burning merrily in the grate. It would be nice to have crackled pork skin, but we didn’t want to go obviously into the kitchen and put it in the microwave (brilliant way to crackle crackling is 1.5 minutes on high, however many times it takes). We didn’t want to do it because it might look like an oblique criticism of the lovely lady who’d cooked lunch. (Not overthinking this in a ludicrously British way at all, there, were we?)

We decided we’d try toasting the un-crackled crackling on the fire and after some reminiscences about Dad toasting crumpets that way, when my brother and I were small, I toasted both our rinds. The two of us giggled like naughty children as the rinds bubbled and spat in the flames. If I’m honest, I could have done with another foot on the toasting fork, but never mind, our skins crackled up beautifully and no matter how it might have felt, I was relieved to discover that my knuckles hadn’t.

So it was light and shade, but sad – especially as, of course, Mum still gets 28 out of 30 in the pathetic NHS memory test which seems to be constructed as a method of delaying any meaningful treatment for as long as possible. I’m guessing Alzheimer’s drugs are expensive. But whatever they say, she’s not alright. There is something wrong. And it may be vascular dementia but it may also be Alzheimer’s and if is Alzheimer’s and we knew, we could hold it back for a little while with treatment. The Doctor said he’d put her through, but she’d have to have blood tests first, and that he thought, personally, that she was OK. She’s said she’ll go with what he advises, sigh.

Meanwhile, fourth my car. One of its dipped headlights has been randomly turning on and off for some time. Serendipitously, I discovered, this week, that Kinky Winky, as I’ve been calling it, is probably the same trouble as last time. The £1,120 plus VAT part trouble. How did I discover this? Incidentally actually, during …

Fifth, my car ate my son’s sports bag.

Six, because of five I missed parents’ swim.

Bastard thing. It may look the dog’s – it may be the dog’s, it can proceed, axle deep, across a muddy farm yard and it ploughed through at least six inches of standing water at 60mph without so much as a twitch on Wednesday (driving in the dark with one headlight anyone?) – but aspects of it are ridiculous. And why does Kinky Winky have to afflict dipped beam? I probably used full beam for about five milliseconds last year, in 25,000 miles of driving. And driving with one light, well, when the person in front of you who’s overtaking suddenly slows up and pulls in … because he’s seen a massive puddle that you haven’t … that’s when two working dipped lights are a lot better than one.

Because I hit the massive puddle with McMini on board and two cars next to me. And the bow wave came over the windscreen. Tight lipped I hung grimly onto the wheel and kept accelerating, in the hope that I could keep the pressure of the exhaust coming out of the pipe higher than that of the water wanting to come in, and the balance of the car where it was. The ABS light came on to tell me that it was giving up on this one, but the car stayed straight and true. Which was good because with the two cars next to me on McMini’s side, any fishtailing would have ended badly.

We did get steam in the ventilation system though and the entire car fugged up, instantly. I had no meaningful clue as to the location of the traffic round me, although I knew it was clear ahead and that I was approaching a roundabout. Once there I was supposed to be turning left. Rather than try and pull in where I knew there were two cars … somewhere … I wiped a quick hole in the fugged up windscreen, opened my window so I could see, indicated right and turned left by going all the way round.

That was when I thought maybe I should get the Kinky Winky syndrome investigated. I should have known. I mean this is Britain, and if there’s one thing we do know about Britain, it’s that it’s fucking heaving with people. And they all drive. You know when you lift up a stone and there are loads of ants under there, rushing around with white eggs? Yeh, that’s Britain’s roads, except there aren’t enough bastard ants for this analogy to ring totally true. Our roads are a lot busier than that.

The only thing you can guarantee about driving in the dark here in Britain is that no matter how obscure or empty the road appears to be THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOMETHING COMING THE OTHER WAY. If you are living in an obscure part of the Outher Hebrides and there’s only one other car on the entire fucking island, IT WILL BE COMING THE OTHER WAY should you decide to drive anywhere at night.

Yes. You’d better get used to driving with dipped headlights people, because if you think you’re going to be able to use full beam for more than a fucking millisecond per nine billion hours of night driving, you’ve another think coming. So yeh, completely missed the existence of a massive eff off puddle. Won’t be doing that again.

Where was I?

Oh yes. Thing five.

My car ate my son’s sports bag.

No shit. It has a ridiculous boot which opens by pulling a string in the cab. Every now and again the string breaks, or becomes detached. When it does that, the boot can sometimes be opened with a bit of jiggling the lid but mostly it’s only going to be opened by experts. The latch on the boot is adjustable, so it can be aligned, precisely, to go through the hole in the bodywork where the rest of the lock is.

Mmm sports bag. Om-nom-nom. Look at its smug fucking face. The git. 😡

Trouble is, roads are bumpy and so this beautifully aligned latch, which is held in place with a bolt, can move if the bolt loosens. And it does.

Muggins here, with her arthritic thumbs, was aware this was happening and tried to put it back. This worked but only sporadically as the Stupid Hands won’t do it tight enough, even on the rare occasions when I can find The Right Sized Spanner. So it was that on Thursday morning, I put McMini’s bag in the boot, plus the clubs he takes to after school golf lessons, and closed the lid. Then I remembered I’d forgotten his sports shoes. That was OK, I would just open the boot and … add … them …

Could I open the boot? Could I bollocks?

No of course I could. I tried all the usual things that work.

Nothing.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

I stalked back to the kitchen, because if I stayed in the garage with that bloody car I was going to take a hatchet to it. And then … which is the slightly worrying bit here … I had a full on melt down. At my husband. Well, not at him, but to him, about … everything. I cried and railed and told him that he and McMini were the only good things in my life (which is not entirely true but they are the only consistently wonderful things, everything else does tend to be a bit off and on … rather like the Noisy Cricket’s stupid bloody headlight).

And McOther listened in silence. And then he said.

‘I’ll take McMini to school, you get onto the mechanic and get this sorted.’

And he did.

And I hot footed it to Newmarket to get the lovely and extremely competent mechanic who works on my car to open the fucking thing. He has constructed a special tool out of wire to do this.

It turned out the latch was so loosely attached to the lid it had, basically, enmeshed itself in the lock and got stuck. While I was there I asked him about the headlight, which is how I know. As he was pretty sure it’s the same deal. So we’re starting to look into that, because it’s only the dipped light at the moment and it’s not off all the time so if I can limp through to summer, it should be OK until next October.

So … I’ve a car that ate my son’s bag and doesn’t work properly in the dark.

Footnote, or possibly seven and eight, my metal detector turned itself off the other day and wouldn’t turn on again for five seconds. I’ve a dig on Saturday, and I bet I’m going to discover that’s not a one-off anomaly. Nine, I’ve just put the washing out and some Important Piece of Metal pinged off the washing line. It pinged off easily enough but would it go back? Would it fuck? I had to go and slip it over the side of a saucepan and pull the long end about so it’d widen and go back on. Now it’s too wide and it’ll ping off every time. Grrr. And having phaffed about with all that and put the washing out in bright sunlight, here we are ten minutes later and it’s sodding raining. Biblically. So that was another twenty minutes of my precious fucking time pissed up the wall to nowhere!

See that? That’s the road of life … cold, dark, uphill the whole fucking way and all the shops are shut!* It’s doing my head in.

I also finally reached the stage where, instead of laughing at the fact every single fucking thing I do goes tits up, or odd, or according to someone else’s bastard plan, I lost it. Totally. When I am looking at one to five years of walking beside Mum and with the very real prospect that we will be following the same journey as Dad I know it’s going to cost me. Keeping my shit together is quite important. So that’s not a great sign. Protective measures will be taken. I’ll let you know what they are when I do.

Oh yeh, ten, The Stupid Hands … knees, shoulders back and ankles. And eleven. I still have my tax return to do. I suspect I’ll feel a lot better when I’ve done that.

Ho hum. I swear this would be a lot funnier if I wasn’t fucking living it.

* Yes. I do completely, and utterly know that’s not true. I’m actually ludicrously blessed and I understand that. I’m just having a rough time right now so it’s harder to appreciate.

Never mind, on the upside, thanks to the HRT, my hair’s looking quite good at the moment. Suddenly it has body again. It’s all long and curly and everywhere. There aren’t many people who could rock a periwig without one! Mwahahahargh! And it’s keeping my head nice and warm.

Eeee look at my chuffing periwig! Phnark.

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14 Dec 2019 · 11:37 am

Shenannagins …

OK, so, I’m not even going to talk about the election result. The choice was a bumbling, everything-that-is-awful-about-posh, bloaty-faced, straw-haired sack of farts, or a man with a rather dodgy looking past who was slightly preferable but wants to do my brother and thousands like him out of a job. What do you want, Mary? Root canal without an anaesthetic or a ghost chilli enema. Choose. I chose, because women died to give me that right. The side I like least won but that’s not saying much. I consoled myself with some guerilla marketing, stealthily inserting cards about my free reader magnet into all the Terry Pratchett books in Waterstone’s. More on those stories, next time … now, it’s back to the matter in hand.

A mish mash of other stuff this week, then. Along with some of the most obscure comedy references available. I thank you. Today, as usual, I am writing to you from the past (Thursday). Well … apart from that first bit but let’s keep this as simple as we can shall we? It was McMini’s last day of term so I forewent parents’ swim, came straight back home after drop off and went into town to vote and do some Christmas shopping. After an hour and a half, I’d been moderately successful, and I couldn’t remember anything else I needed until I arrived home. Once here, realised that I’d forgotten to get the propelling pencil McMini wanted, although I can get that tomorrow.

While I was trailing round Waitrose, I had a quick chat to a friend, and found a small cured meats platter reduced from just shy of £7 to £2 and a rather garlicky curried bean salad which was also reduced. Smugly congratulating myself for sorting myself with a very pleasant lunch, I went home, where I immediately realised I had failed to get the one thing we really needed: milk.

The hat …

Never mind. I’d go up later I thought. And of course immediately I had that thought it began to rain and continued to piss down until the moment I had to leave to collect McMini from school.

Meanwhile, McOther is off on some work thing until late tonight in Oxford so collecting McMini involved going to the final school event of the term, McMini’s carol service. Alone.

The carol service takes place in the cathedral, which is a few hundred yards down the road from our house so I decided to walk. Seeing as it was still pissing with rain, and I had therefore failed to get the milk, I thought I’d take advantage of the time I had to walk into town to leave fifteen minutes early, swing by M&S on the way and pick up a plastic two pint bottle.

The communication from the school warned us that she service would start at two o’clock prompt and that there was stuff on in the cathedral so would parents not take their seats until after one fifteen. Shit were people sitting there for forty minutes? Fuck a duck! How full was it going to be? OK so I’d aim to get there by quarter to, that way I could stand at the back and sing really loudly without disturbing anyone. If I was really lucky, I’d be so far from other people that I’d be able to do the descents without anyone noticing.

There was a queue in M&S and so I strolled in at five to two. The cathedral was packed and, somewhat blinded by the miasma of pathetic rain all over my glasses I set off where I was ushed, if that’s a word, down the aisle.

Half way down, I was shown into a seat next to a pleasant couple who were on the aisle. It being rather bad form to take the outside and obscure their view, I squeezed past them and sat third person in. Shortly afterwards, a family arrived from the other side and took the remaining seats wedging me firmly in place. We were definitely packed in and when Once in Royal started up and we all stood, I turned sideways, which did make things easier. The people round me were pleasant enough but rather serious and staring straight ahead, clearly worried that I might engage them in conversation.

Waynetta Slob … and Wayne.

Then again, that was probably understandable, as they probably thought I was a weirdo. I was wearing a stripy knitted hat, so McMini would see me easily, a manky waterproof coat (think Ted’s out of Ralph and Ted in the Fast Show) a pair of wedgewood blue moleskin trousers that, in the wrong light, can be mistaken for the same kind of velour jogging pants favoured by Waynetta Slob and I was carrying a pint of milk. This, is probably not how the average Christian expects their fellows to turn up at church (well unless it’s mine and the person is doing coffee). I did demur from smiling at them and saying, ‘milky milky’ but I wonder if that might have broken the ice. Possibly, but I suspect it would merely have made people nervous, as a comedy reference goes, it’s too old and too obscure and would merely become the embodiment of the original parody.

The cathedral, itself, looked stunning and as a building expanded by the same firm of architects who designed the one where we had Dad’s memorial, there was a pleasant feeling of familiarity about it. The picture doesn’t really do it justice but they asked us not to take photos (after I’d taken that one) so I had to pixelate the teacher and crop off the parents in front of me.

Now, normally, when I go to carol services, I’m there with someone I know. So we are able to giggle when I sing the wrong verses to the carols incredibly loudly, or when I try to whisper the responses and end up barking, ‘AMEN!’ At the top of my voice when everyone else is saying, ‘and also with you’ because my voice has done something funny etc. The details of these things always amuse me and I come from a family of people who fuck it up in similar style. As a result, my memories of Christmas services, as a child, are of giggling at stuff ups, or because my brother was singing the carols falsetto, or I was singing them in a really high squeaky voice, an octave above everyone, that I can no longer do. Or Dad was complaining about how ‘fucking high’ the carols were this year (yes, there was plenty of effing, even pre Alzheimer’s) as his voice cracked, yet again, while, with a facial expression like someone sucking a lemon, he attempted the high bits in Hark the Herald.

There was also a propensity to do a kind of irreverent running commentary, among ourselves. In short, in my family, there was, still is, normally a lot of giggling. And if it isn’t family, I’m normally with other parents I know, so there is also giggling.

But when you are on your own you can’t giggle. Especially if you have a) turned up with a bottle of milk, b) eaten an injudiciously garlicky lunch which you are now sharing, through the medium of your incredibly scary breath as you do the singing and c) have already drawn a great deal of attention to yourself with your incredibly loud singing voice and the fact you are dressed like a rubby. On the up side, as a friend later remarked, at least it was only milk I turned up with and not a can of Stella.

Mwahahahahrgh! It’s never too early for a fusilier!

Of course, the absence of other like-minded nutters, or at least, in the event of my failing to out any that were near me, the commentary went on inside my head only.

There was a couple in front of me, sharing their service sheet in a very sit com style and a little old dear with them who I had down as grandma. Grandma (for want of a better name) suddenly upped sticks and with a nod, a smile and a wave at them disappeared off down the aisle to the back.

My brother’s suit! Nearly as loud as my voice, but not quite. 🤣

A few minutes later, after looking nervously round, the lady also disappeared up the aisle. She was gone for the whole of Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and then reappeared in the last verse but still sans old dear. Had she gone to the Cathedral Centre lavatories to enquire after the old dear’s health? Was there a family crisis being played out here? I’ll never know, even though, as a professional nosey bastard (I’m an author after all) I’d like to.

There I was jammed in next to all these very nice but incredibly serious people. Their horror was almost palpable as I yelled my way through what felt like a million carols at the kind of volume that comes close to competing with a set of bagpipes. Maybe that’s why the old dear left. But the alternative is not to sing, which I will not countenance at a carol service, or to sing a bit less loudly, which is still deafening, but risks being really rather out of tune with it.

At the end of the service, the headmaster read the last lesson. They’d gone for a different response to the usual and he reverted to the traditional one. Except instead of giving the feed line he gave the response. Everyone tried to say something but nobody knew what to do so we all just went kind of, ‘mana-manah.’ And quick as a flash, a little voice in my head went, ‘do dooo do do do!’ And I started thinking about the Muppets song.

It wasn’t funny exactly, but it was accumulative funny, the sort of thing which would get a laugh if you added it to other stuff in a comedy. And if you have the kind of mind that’s already seeing a rich comedy of the absurd in yourself and everything around you, and has been attempting to do a Terry Wogan at seventies Eurovision-style voice over throughout the service. Or if you’re from the kind of family who’d start giggling. It’s really hard not to nudge the people either side of you and laugh. I resisted the temptation to nudge, but a small chuckle escaped.

Nobody else made a sound. Oops

Then Hark the Herald began.

Fuckity fucking fuck! (Sorry.) But seriously, Dad wasn’t wrong, I swear it goes up a key every year. For me things get a bit dicey over top f, I can do top g but only on days when I can’t get down to bottom g. Otherwise I have to do the special high note gurn. It’s a facial contortion that throws Dad’s sucking a lemon high-note reaching expression into the shade. And you just can’t go about doing that kind of thing in decent lighting, in front of people you don’t know. Most cathedrals are chuffing dark so hardly anyone can see. Not this one. Today was low voiced Mary, I’d managed to produce a crystal clear, non crackly Little Town of Bethlehem. I knew that fucking high note was going to be a bit of a stretch. And we were definitely up there.

So there I was wearing my manky old waterproof coat and my ridiculous pussy hat, screeching the carols like some peri-menopausal banshee. With a bottle of milk. And garlic breath. Trying not to show any outward signs of amusement or … well … any outward signs. While in my head I could hear my father guffawing his head off and saying something like, ‘Well Mary, you really have excelled yourself this year.’

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2 Nov 2019 · 3:55 pm

Shiny things and other news!

Apologies for my sudden absence last week, I was on holiday – woot. I meant to write something but when the time came, I wasn’t so inspired. Portugal was lovely, as always, although on the down side, I failed to score any Don Rodrigo this year, which was a blow. I should point out that Don Rodrigo is not a bloke or drugs but is, in fact, this weird Algarvian pudding. Imagine Baklava, you know, the ones that look like shredded wheat, but the shredded wheat bit is made with egg. Egg they’ve extruded and done odd stuff to, good stuff, but odd nonetheless. That’s Don Rodrigo, it’s like … I dunno … deconstructed custard, but it’s Oh so much more than that! It is one of my favourite things. McMini and I have even made a rap type song about it because we’re both nuts.

We had some fantastic pork and clams, fish stew, piri-piri chicken, and other general om-nomess, the sun was out, and I did loads of work. Work on holiday? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but then, my job doesn’t feel like work, so it was more of a case of it being a holiday from Real Life to have some fun. Indeed, I managed to finish the next short in the series, which was weighing at a measly 10k and needed to be 15 or more. It’s now up to 19 with an added twist. I managed to sort out one that was done but … you know, not done. Although that went up from 20k to 26k. Then I tidied up the one between. McMini was hugely pleased when McOther gave him his old flippers. So pleased that for the first couple of days he wore them as slippers.

Also, I was delighted to find I was able to eyebomb the Zamboni at Faro airport. McOther refused to wait, initially. Then as we sat outside on a bench outside the terminal while McMini finished his lunch he relented.

‘Just five minutes, and if you get arrested, we’re not coming to bail you out.’

Anyway, I meant to post something a bit more meaningful today but things have overtaken me and I’ve got distracted by shiny things again. Mind you, since I’m here, I feel I may as well share some of the shininess with you.

First up; the audiobook, MTM starts fidgeting and jiggling about with poorly suppressed excitement and glee. Last night Gareth The Voice sent me the recording of Few Are Chosen to listen to. It’s the weekend, and I have things to do and Real Life to interact with but I managed to get to chapter 17 as I wandered round the market. The first appearance of Humbert made me laugh out loud and the good burghers of Bury St Edmunds around me stepped gingerly away from the mad woman guffawing to herself! My early first impression is a good one. I still can’t quite believe that a person with a voice that’s so totally right for the story has popped up out of nowhere, unbidden. Then again, Gareth is a bright bloke and he’s probably smart enough to pick something that his voice fits. I’m just delighted it was my stuff.

There could have been a lot of auditioning, even if I’d had anything approaching the money, and it had been on the radar. And while it could have been a lady or a man, I would have spent ages trying to find the right person. Instead, he finds me. I have been an unbelievably jammy bleeder in this respect.

It feels as if, finally, when the unicorn farted, I contrived to be vaguely downwind. Mmm. Go me. Phnark.

It’s a really intriguing process, and kind of nerve racking in a way, so, for example, Gareth’s Lord Vernon is kind of a cross between Donald Pleasance doing Blowfeldt, with a dash of Peter Cushing saying, ‘you may fire hwhen ready,’ in Star Wars. It’s quite strange because it’s not quite how I imagined it, but bloody hell it works. He sounds so fucking evil! Mwahahahahrgh! Several folks who have listened to Unlucky Dip since I posted it here thought Gareth had Big Merv and The Pan bang on, too.

Second, yesterday, I managed to sort out this year’s, or at least, next year’s EyebombThereforeIAm calendar. I’ve used the prize money I won in the photographic competition and had 100 copies printed. So far, I have offered to sell it and split the profit with three separate entities. Hopefully that should account for all 100. Having them printed up front does give me a chance of actually getting somewhere with them because it’s cheaper so I can sell them for £10.99 rather than having to sell them for £16.99 to make 99p profit. I think I may have misspelled instagram in the blurb on the back though. Such is life. It wouldn’t be me if I got this stuff 100% right it seems.

Third, the next instalment of the Hamgeean Misfit series of shorts should be ready for editing by the middle of next week. Indeed the only thing that’s stopping it at the moment is my usual chronic lack of cash. I’m hoping to have it ready for sale by January though, since it’s sort of, about Christmas really, but a midwinter-ish release date is fine.

Fourth, Future Adventures seems to be doing well, I am loving it anyway, but other readers seem to have enjoyed the book I put in and have bought the others. There’s been a significant uplift in income this month … or to put it another way, there’s been some, and I can’t think of anything else that would be responsible. Whoopeee!

On the home front, we are ramping up for Dad’s memorial service, not next week but the week after. It should be fun as it will just be a celebration more than anything. A group of people standing around telling silly stories about him. When I think about Dad now, I am just overjoyed to have known such a lovely chap, and unbelievably proud that he was my Dad. I do also feel that I have to step into his shoes, try harder at acts of random kindness and at being the voice of reason. I will post more about that soon, but I have to be in the right mood to write it up and at the moment I’m just too exuberant and excited about all the other stuff.

Yeh, another champagne week, I guess.

_____________________

If you’re interested and missed it before, you can find out more about Future Adventures and Small Beginnings by clicking on the links, below:

Future Adventures

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1

If you click the Small Beginnings link and scroll down, you can also sign up to be informed when the other books in the series come out.

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19 Oct 2019 · 11:43 am

Ham, Jam and Spam.

Woah! There’s a whole gamut of stuff to talk about today. It’s been a chuffing amazing week and I am feeling happier than I’ve felt in years, which I am enjoying thoroughly! OK, maybe I’m owed some Karma or something but even the scam phone call we received yesterday morning did us all a favour. First up:

The Audiobook Project

Aroogah! Aroogah! Pretentiousness alert.

OK, now I’m going to get a bit artsy fartsy here and talk about the business of creating … um … can I call it art? Yes, I’m going to call it art! Snortle. What that means, for you, is that this next bit’s going to sound a trifle pretentious. Look I’ll try and keep it funny, OK. But it is a completely fascinating process this and one I’m really enjoying so I wanted to talk about it.

The thing is, I’d thought about doing my own audiobooks, I did stand up after all. I even tried reading a bit of Unlucky Dip. But there’s a big difference between being able to do funny voices and being able to actually act. Acting is an underrated skill. Yep, there’s a reason why these folks who cross into acting from other careers can’t always pull it off. When I played my recording back, I’d managed to make my story so boring and so lacking in energy, and my attempts at the accents were so hammy that I decided that, if anyone did it, it would have to be someone who could do it properly. Which definitely wasn’t me. And that being the case it also, definitely wasn’t anything I could afford. Because you can’t really join audible and offer someone a royalty split when it’s only going to be a couple of quid a month.

And then, up pops this lunatic called Gareth who wants to record my books on audio, lord help him! And he’s brilliant. And extremely professional about it, but not in a boring killjoy I’m-a-professional kind of way. He just is. On a point of honour, I have made it very clear to him that we’ll only make a few pence each a month if we’re lucky, but he seems completely undaunted by this triviality. Well, he enjoyed the books so he’s obviously a bit of a nutter but it does lend this project a whole aura of, is this actually happening?

This week, we’ve been trying to set what the main characters sound like, which is great fun and allows for total geekery. It’s hilarious trying to describe how you want something to sound when you’re not a good enough mimic to demonstrate. And I’m not. Instead I have to go, ‘she’s a bit like so and so in x, y or z film but a bit more gruff,’ or, ‘General Moteurs? Steed from the Avengers with a bit of that clipped Richard Burton delivery in Where Eagles Dare,’ and then he adds a tiny tiny sprinkling of ‘you my fire h-when ready’ Peter Cushing in StarWars because General Moteurs is quite up himself, especially at the start,’ and so on. General Moteurs is quite tricky because he has to sound like an anally retentive neat bot, but at the same time, he can’t sound too elderly because he’s only in his mid 40s and he gets it on with Deirdre. I’ve really enjoyed trawling my memory of old films for the voices I want. It’s like a competition for who can think of the obscurest mainstream film character – Donald Pleasance doing Blowfeldt anyone?

And then Gareth sends through a sound sample in which he talks in his normal voice about what he’s doing and then does thirty seconds of extremely sinister Lord Vernon, and then he flips out of it again and goes, kind of, ‘is that the sort of thing you meant?’ and it’s like two different blokes on the same tape and it’s gloriously bizarre, and, of course, completely hilarious. So I’m sitting there laughing like a drain and McOther is saying, ‘what on God’s earth are you doing?’ And I have to explain and he gives me the kindly smiling-at-toothless-simpletons look. The one he does when McMini and I get giggly about the Arnold’s Produce vans.

And all the time, these characters are becoming more and more real and I am ludicrously excited to hear them taking aural shape (is that a thing? Mmwahahahargh! It is now). I can tell you, for nothing, that if anyone tried to buy the film rights of one of my books, or make a film, and I was remotely involved in any way, I would probably actually die from the excitement. Luckily Gareth seems to be experiencing a similar Tigger-like enthusiasm for it all, so at least we’re both as nuts as each other.

It’s also weird that I have the character voices quite clearly in my head, but when I look at it, it’s more the tone or delivery technique than the actual sound. Does that make sense? So then there’s this odd dichotomy between what I ‘hear’ and what readers might be hearing and what Gareth, who knows and likes the books, hears when he reads them. And also what is possible with one person’s voice – although we haven’t hit any roadblocks on that score yet. So, interestingly, he’s always imagined the Grongles with American accents, like the British baddie thing in reverse, which would have been hilarious, but ill advised in the current climate, I think. I do visit the States from time to time and it would be a pity if I got set upon for dissing the mother nation, especially when so many of them carry firearms.

But the other thing is that the voices in my head are a lot more similar than they can be in an audiobook because they’re basically all talking with my voice, except for the ones I’ve given comedy accents; the Mervinettes and the Parrot and Screwdriver contingent. They need to be different so there’s some re-imagining required, which is where having an actual actor on board changes everything. He did a voice for Sir Robin which sounded exactly like my dad, which is how it is in my head. But then he did this other voice, which is a bit of a cheeky nod at Sir Alec Guinness in Star Wars and obviously there was no contest and the Geek in me chose that one! Mwahahahahrgh!

What I love about something like this is the whole collaboration thing. Writing is a singularly solo pursuit, and now the involvement of someone else brings a different slant to it all and opens all kinds of doors (Lordy me! Pretension anyone? I know, I’m sorry, but I can’t think of another way of putting it). But it’s like having someone else in on the jokes! Also I’m a great believer that a collaboration is just that, and that a person looking at my stuff as a reader will see things I don’t. So, while I’m choosing these voices, some of them are completely new and different to how I thought they’d be and bits of the reading a little different to how it sounds in my head. On the one hand, it’s old ground, on another it’s totally new.

It’s a hell of a thing.

Other news …

After you …

A while back, McMini and I entered a photography competition. It was themed around tall buildings, or at least things, because trees were acceptable too. There were two classes; under 18 and the others (I can’t remember what it was really called) and you could enter up to five photos so I entered five pictures into ‘the others’ section and McMini entered two into the under 18 class.

We were informed that three of mine and one of his had made the shortlist, which was very exciting as it meant they would be part of an exhibition and offered for sale to the unwitting public. We were asked if we could ensure that we, or a representative, came to the exhibition space for the prize giving on Tuesday. We duly turned up, me thinking that McMini had won something. I was dead chuffed when a mum friend from McMini’s old school got a highly commended, but then it turned out one of mine had come chuffing second!!! Fucking Ada I was floored. And then they handed me a big fuck off cheque, which means I can afford to print an eyebombing calendar this year at the kind of price which will give me a proper margin to sell it into other places. So I’m stoked.

For your delectation, the photo which won is the one on the right there.

McOther is also a great deal more relaxed this week, as we get towards a visit from his US-dwelling bro and our trip to Portugal so that’s grand.

Finally

Useful things come in odd guises. Yesterday morning some bunch of gitoids with an autodialler rang us early. The entire house was asleep and McOther leapt out of bed and answered. It was the usual recorded message, with a foreign accent, telling us that our internet would be switched off in the next 24 hours unless we pressed one to put us through to the help desk or whatever. Either way, it would be a premium rate line that would cost us £100 a minute or it would go through to someone who’d take a ‘payment’ to get our credit card details. Foggy with sleep, I looked at my watch. It was 7.57 a.m.

Shit!

‘I have some good news and some bad news,’ I told McOther as he returned to our bedroom. ‘The good news, is, that was a fantastic sleep we’ve just had. The bad news is we’ve both slept through our alarms and McMini is supposed to be leaving for school in three minutes.’

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Panic stations!

I ran downstairs and got his bag sorted, stuffing all the PE socks and other bits I’d washed and left to dry over night into it. McMini dressed in about seven minutes flat, McOther too, then with some cheese biscuits in hand (I’m not sure what normal people call those. Savoury crackers?) McMini and McOther fled to the car. McMini didn’t have time for a cup of tea, so he sniffed a tea bag before he left!

They departed ten minutes late and got to the school with five minutes to spare. Go McOther with your flash motor and McMini with your speed dressing prowess! Phnark.

Which just goes to show that even bad things can have good results! Thank heavens it’s half term next week I suspect we need it.

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21 Sep 2019 · 12:49 pm

Fockers and other things …

This week, I’m afraid my piss-poor organisational skills have bitten me on the bottom as usual and I only have half an hour to write this post – possibly a little less – so it’s going to be ill conceived, badly written and will, no doubt, contain a plethora of dodgy spelling.

Things are a bit hectic at the moment, plans are afoot for Dad’s memorial service so there’s that and McMini has started a new school which he seems to be enjoying enormously. However, it’s a school where he is expected to be vaguely organised, which is interesting. He has a gum guard, because they play rugby there, and this has caused him a great deal of excitement. He spent most of the first weekend he got it wearing it about the house and occasionally whipping it out and shoving it towards my face saying,

‘Smell my gumshield, Mum.’

I wore braces as a kid. I know what things smell like after they’ve been in your mouth for a long time so my answer was always a resounding, ‘NO!’ This week I thought he’d lost it.

‘It’s in my school bag,’ he told me.

‘With the text books and that?’

‘Yes.’

I picked up the box it is supposed to live in. ‘And not in its box,’ I said, just to check.

‘Um … no.’

Gak!

Looking at it, I saw that it has been pretty much eaten. I can only assume that he’s been wearing it in lessons, trust me, that would not be beyond him.

One of the things he has to do at school is be ready for any eventuality in phys ed. So he has indoor non-marking soled trainers, outdoor trainers, rugby boots, football boots, a rugby kit, a tennis/pe kit, a hockey kit and a tracksuit. In two and a half weeks he has lost one pair of rugby shorts – but luckily he has a spare – and one of the other pairs of shorts … the hockey ones, I think, but I’m not sure.

This is OK so long as he isn’t asked to wear them as if he is asked to put them on, and can’t, it will result in slightly draconian measures and trouble. He told me, cheerfully, that if he has the wrong shorts, except the rugby ones, he’ll just wear his tracky bottoms. I do hope he gets away with it. But being organised is not his strong suit. He managed to lose a drum stick between the car and his class room last week, so that’s in a car park basically. No sign of it. It’s bizarre. He is also perfectly capable of ‘losing’ things that he actually has with him, by not looking very carefully in his bag.

Last night at pick-up he hit me with a real purler.

‘I’ve lost one of my astro turf boots,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, I never wear them. Everyone else wears trainers so I do.’

Strangely keen to conform, McMini.

Gads! I shook my head in disbelief. Completely stumped. I looked in the shoe section of bag and sure enough there was only one astroturf boot and, worse, only one football boot.

‘How have you done this?’ I asked him. Yes, I the woman who took him to nursery in one scarlet trainer and one beige trainer and didn’t notice until I got into the car to drive home, asked him that.

‘I don’t know, but I think the football boot is in with my kit.’

We looked and sure enough it was, which was a bit of a relief but no obvious sign of the astroturf boot.

‘We’re going to have to check lost property before we go home,’ I told him.

‘OK, but if we don’t find it, please don’t tell Dad about the shoe for a bit. Give me time to have another look as I’m sure it’ll turn up.’

I heave a sigh. McOther is organised and doesn’t really understand about clueless airheads, even though he’s married one and spawned another. Neither of us likes to feel his wrath over the weekend so I agreed.

‘OK,’ I said, and the search began.

We looked in the Prep School lost property and there was nothing there so we widened the search to the sports centre, but they’d just sent a box of lost property back up to the prep school.

No shoe and no shorts either.

Bollocks.

So we drove home. The speed limit on the school site is 15 mph so I tend to grip the steering wheel lean right forward with an intense expression and do it in first gear. The car is definitely better off doing it in first but I like it too because I pretend that I think I’m driving really fast and the G forces are getting a bit much for me. You know, like that bit in Minions 2 when the professor discovers yer man Gru has been kidnapped says, ‘we must help him’ and leaps onto his invalid trike and drives off incredibly slowly, with the determined expression of someone who thinks he’s going a lot faster.

We arrived home and I emptied said kit bag of stinky kit ready to wash and was disappointed not to find the shorts but, on the upside, I did discover the other astroturf boot. In with the kit. Where we both looked.

So Hoorah! but at the same time, kind of, oops. Nice to know I’m setting a great example to my son, pity it’s how not to be though! Mwahahahargh!

Finally I’ll leave you with a completely hilarious story I saw this week about Sir Douglas Bader. I’ve no idea if it’s true but I so hope it is because it’s bloody funny. In fact, I know it would have made my Dad guffaw with laughter. I do hope I didn’t post this last week. Apologies if I did. The brain fog is still strong …

Now to prepare for languages week. McMini has to go to school dressed as a European country. He has the entire outfit to go as Scotland but does he want to do that, and offer Gaelic? Of course not, he wants to go as Germany.

Give me strength.

A bientot!

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14 Sep 2019 · 11:48 am

Random news and an appeal … sort of …

Here we are at the end of McMini’s first week and, as usual, I haven’t really got my arse into gear and written an proper post. This is becoming a habit isn’t it? But actually it’s not such a bad thing as I have a couple of updates. First I’m going to share a good cause with you, then I’ll share some news about my upcoming new release and then I’m going to share a bad parenting story.

Aimee and Kyle’s big adventure!

You may have seen me talking on my facebook feed about one of Mum’s carers and her chap who are walking from Skye to Sussex. Here they are with the other members of their trusty crew, Milo and Mabel:

You wouldn’t know it if you were where I am (blue sky, crisp sunlight … you get the picture) but the weather in Scotland right now is biblical rain and floods. The first day, it was so bad they couldn’t camp so they did their walking and were then picked up, taken back to the starting point for a night in the dry and dropped back where they’d got to the next day.

Mountain streams look like this …

They have now walked in the rain since 1st September, oh no wait one day it didn’t rain. But only one. They reached a guest house just outside Glasgow on Friday and are having a weekend off to dry out the tent. Even Milo and Mabel, who are always up for running about, were completely flaked out by that time.

The four of them have been moved on when trying to camp because it was dangerous – apparently the river running beside the campsite they’d chosen has a tendency to rise very fast and recently some folks, and their tent, have been swept away.

Rivers look like this

They had to take a detour over a mountain so steep that they did it, literally, on all fours because the valley through which they should have been walking was full of water and had to cross mountain streams that have turned into raging torrents of scarily cream-coloured rapids and the paths upon which they’re supposed to walk are two inches deep in ice cold running water.

Sounds nice …

On the upside, I imagine that midge bites have caused them zero stress. So there we are. Every cloud has a silver lining.

They are not walking alone, as I mentioned their two mad jack russells, Milo and Mabel are coming too. Mostly they are enjoying themselves, except when they have to be carried across a river, at which point, as you can see from the picture, below, they are, understandably, lacking in enthusiasm. The picture of Milo and Mabel, or at least Mabel and Milo, in the ruck sack was taken on a day when they had a friend walking with them.

Why I’m telling you about this is because they are walking in memory of both their dads, who died early and suddenly of heart problems. So they’re raising money for the British Heart Foundation. I wouldn’t normally do this, but since they’ve had such hard going of it, I feel I should help out by sharing their escapades.

You don’t have to do anything but applaud their efforts but if you are able to share either of the links below, or donate a few quid, it would be fabulous. I’m sure they’d welcome shares just as much as a donation.

Here are the pages about their trip to share or donate to:

Give to the British Heart Foundation via Aimee and Kyle’s Just Giving Page … or just share it: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aimeeleazell

Likewise, they have a Gofundme which is to raise funds for the odd night in a B&B. Looking at the weather they’re enduring, they might need a few more of those, if only to dry the tent out once a week. You can share or donate a few quid to that one down this link here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/aimee-amp-kyles-isle-of-skye-to-steyning-hike?

Cheers.

MTM Book news

This week I received news that the group I exhibit with at the Christmas Fayre is starting up at another venue. I’ve sorely missed the income from this the last couple of years so I’m looking forward to having another go. Hoping the new venue will be as good as the old one. It’s certainly a lovely building.

With fair wind and a bit of luck I should have the first book in the new series ready in ebook and paperback by then, which will be good. I sent the first short in the series off for its last round of editing (hopefully) this week, although the actual slot is 23rd Sep or thereabouts so it won’t come back until just before Half Term. When that’s done, I just have to format it properly, make it into an ebook and a slim paperback and um … launch it (yikes! But good yikes!). I’m also still fighting to get a short ready for next year’s Christmas Lites by Monday. I think it’s going to be too long for me to finish in time but I’m still going to give it my best shot. Fingers and toes crossed. If I can keep it down to about 8k I may be in with a chance. Otherwise, I’ll just have to put it away and will have a story to submit next year!

On other projects, I’m working on an Eyebomb Bury St Edmunds calendar which, I hope, will be ready for the Christmas Fayre. I suspect I am going to have to dip into my slush fund to pay for stock but here’s hoping I make some cash back! More details when the time comes.

Next week, I may even be able to link to the page where you can buy Small Beginnings on pre order. Yeh, I know. I wondered if it would ever happen, myself.

An embarrassing parenthood story.

A few years ago, when McMini was about two and a half or three, we decided to have our spare room bathroom redone. It needed it. The pink scallop shell sink was … grim. Off we went to the bath store. I managed to keep an eye on McMini but at one point McOther and I got a bit too engrossed in measuring a basin and he disappeared. I nipped off to find him and met him searching for me. He looked worried.

‘Mummy, there is a problem,’ he said.
‘Is there? What’s happened small fry?’
‘Come with me please, Mummy.’

I followed and he led me round one of the displays to a loo.

‘I have had a wee, but it will not flush,’ he said solemnly.

I looked into the display loo and discovered that he had, indeed, had a wee. Stifling an almighty guffaw I said,

‘Ah. This is a display loo, it’s just so we can see what it looks like. It’s not attached to any pipes so we can’t flush it.’
‘Have I done a bad thing?’
‘No, although, I have because I should have thought to tell you.’
He giggled and said, ‘Naughty Mummy!’
‘Yes. Naughty me. We must both remember not to do it again, alright.’

Then I did a very foolish thing. Instead of fessing up to the staff right then, I put the lid down and tip toed quietly back to my husband, who was negotiating the purchase of a basin and loo. I’d wait until we’d sorted out the business transaction and then explain. Except that it took longer than 20 seconds to make the transaction and with demented dad/mummy brain it completely slipped my mind …

It was only a couple of weeks later that I realised I’d completely forgotten to tell them what had happened. If anyone reading this worked for the Cambridge bathroom store a long time ago, and found a wee in one of their loos, I’m really, really sorry.

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31 Aug 2019 · 2:11 pm

Disappearing cats and disappearing money …

So, on the up side, I’ve written a couple of hundred words on a new story and have a good idea what it’s going to be about and who’s in it which feels wonderful. On the down side, THINGS have been fairly hectic, as usual.

First up McCar, the Noisy Cricket, has those stupid LED headlights and they broke. Usually with a car like mine you’re pretty safe on parts; my old one seemed to have a fair amount that could also be found on various Vauxhaulls (Opels if you’re outside the UK) and they were cheap so it ended up with high end Vauxhaull branded brake discs etc. Unfortunately, the headlight for this one is a sealed unit built specifically for this marque of car and they only make about 500 a year – and that’s 500 of the car, not the headlight unit, they probably make about five of those. Naturally, that means that they cost an arm and a leg.

So it was that I dropped the wretched thing off a week ago. To be honest I’ve only just got my finances back on track after the gargantuan bills I had to pay last year. On the up side, despite the massive expense, they did actually have one the mechanic could get hold of – no endless searching on the internet and having to import it from Germany which was what happened last time I had to try and replace the tyres. Indeed it was perfectly possible that the part would not only be out of stock in the UK but out of stock everywhere, rendering my car illegal – and with its MOT running out in two weeks – unusable until such time as Lotus deigned to replace their stock so I considered that a win.

Never mind, after a very pleasant day at the beach on Monday followed by supper in the garden, we sat out in the darkness, revelling in being a comfortable temperature. McCat revelled with us. When it was time to go in, McCat was being a bit coquettish.

‘I’ll just go and get the cheese,’ I said. McCat will comply with pretty much any demand if there’s cheese in the offing.

Then there was a rustle, the sound of an oversized tabby cat galloping very fast and a bang and a scrabble as he went over the fence into next door. The bloody squirrel is back, it seems. Fat, unfeasibly healthy, it’s fat face stuffed to the gunwales by everyone on the street by the looks of it. But, unfortunately, it’s still too fast and agile – both mentally and physically – for McCat. He chased the little bastard into next door and that was the last we saw of him.

We called and called but he didn’t come in. McMini was distraught as was I. McOther who dislikes McCat, was ambivalent. I had a think about the trajectory and reckoned he’d gone over the wall into next door and, possibly, over their wall into the main road beyond. Normally he doesn’t go near that but stays in the three gardens on our triangle of land or goes across the quiet residential street at the back. He is frightened of cars and petrified of lorries, haring in when the dustcart comes past on the quiet residential side. He never crosses the main road therefore, because he’s scared. Ergo, if he’d crossed it that night in the red heat of a chase, he wouldn’t be coming back over until the traffic died down. He’d be too scared.

McCat … butter wouldn’t melt

However, they were resurfacing the roundabout a few hundred yards beyond our house and the main road is never that quiet. Even so, we hoped that, if we left his food out and the cat flap open, he’d come back. But we also knew that McCat is too scared of traffic to return across a busy road that never sleeps (except for a couple of hours between two and four when the drunks walking home yelling the odds at one another take over – and no, he wouldn’t chance running past them either). Then there’s the wall, of course, five or six feet our side but about fourteen the other. A big jump to ask of a cat. Opposite is a wall of houses with doors fronting onto the street and finally, about 100 yards down, there’s a small street running to the allotments. There’s a block of flats opposite us and another street to the allotments about 50 yards up the other way. All we could think was that he’d got across the road, been frightened and run down the street to the one of the side roads, the direction of travel suggested the furthest of the two from us. It’s walled all the way along, so the allotments at the far end of it seemed like a good place to start looking.

The next morning no cat.

McOther left for work and though it was like a furnace out McMini and I popped over to our next door neighbours’ and searched their garden. Then we walked across the main road and started in the allotments behind the houses, calling as we went. After a couple of hours I began to worry about dragging a small boy around in such oven-like heat so we went home, me to make posters and McMini to whinge about how badly he needed a haircut. Although he perked up considerably once I’d given him a meal. Having consulted t’interweb, advice on line suggested talking to other neighbours or folks in nearby houses. It looked as if the best thing we could do was wait until people were coming home from work and then trudge round the nearby streets posting leaflets through their letterboxes and knocking on their doors. So, since the posters were made, McMini and I went to the barbers as it’s only at the end of the street and we handed out posters to all businesses on the way, the barbers put one up too.

I brought a stapler with me to attach posters to any posts or telegraph poles we passed. It is one of my favourite things so, naturally, I lost it, which was a massive pisser but pretty much inevitable what with the week I was having.

McMini’s hair cut complete we returned home and luckily, McOther arrived soon after as I was printing out more posters and also flyers. I’d shared McCat all over social media, which had met with a wonderful response, and was pointed in the direction of some excellent local lost cat groups – it’s definitely worth searching Facebook for lost pets groups in your town if you lose one. One of the lost cats groups had some great advice about what to do if your cat goes missing. They’d said that usually cats will be hiding close by, scared to come home. That figured, I was sure that’s what ours was doing, but opposite was a wall of houses and I reckoned he was behind them. I just needed to get into people’s gardens and to do that, as the advice said, I needed to knock on the doors of the ten nearest houses to ours.

We were all worried, it was now nearly 24 hours since McCat had gone missing, it was boiling hot and unless he was lucky enough to be hiding near some water, McCat would have had nothing to drink in all that time. He’d be very dehydrated as well as hungry. The heat being what it was, I doubted I had too much time to find him before he became really ill.

McOther happily at home and McMini with him, I headed off alone to start door knocking on the quiet side of our plot, mainly because I hadn’t looked there at all yet and wanted to try and cover all the surrounding area as quickly as I could. Then I crossed the main road and started on the other side from us. I posted leaflets in all the houses because nobody was in, or answering. I also put posters up along all the telegraph poles in the road where all the back gates were, which ran parallel to the main road, behind the houses, along the edge of the allotments. At last I came to the neighbours opposite. They live in an old house next door to a Victorian building which has been converted into flats. Their main entrance is at the side, and they and the Victorian flats share parking. The opposite neighbour didn’t answer.

As I wondered what to do next, I wasn’t sure there was much point in disturbing the people in the flats, I noticed the car park went round behind them. I walked past the building to have a look. There was a small brick outhouse built onto the back, about the size of a garden shed, with an open door which revealed it to be full of bicycles. I wondered if I should go look when a voice called out asking what I was doing. It was the opposite neighbour, who hadn’t answered the door, calling from a first floor window. I retraced my steps and explained that I was looking for my cat and she said she’d keep an eye out for him. Then I stuck a leaflet in the door of the first flat and decided that, now she knew that I wasn’t a burglar casing the joint, maybe I could go back and have a better look at the shed. Standing at the corner, I looked at the open door a few yards away, screwing up the courage to trespass and go closer. I took a couple of paces and stopped. I was sure I heard a meow.

‘McCat?’ I called.

The meow got louder. It was definitely a yell-for-help kind of meow.

I moved closer, and called again. Inside the outhouse/porch some sheets of plywood leant against the wall and now, as I moved slowly towards them, a wide-eyed tabby face appeared from the darkness underneath them.

Gently, I approached him, talking to him all the while, because I wasn’t sure if he’d take off. Once I was within a couple of feet of his hiding place I stopped. I didn’t want to crowd him. He crept out, keeping low in case the sky fell on him, shimmied under the pedals of one of the bicycles and inched towards me. I was keenly aware that the road was busy, that I didn’t have a cat box and that he might not let me catch him. He was still meowing loudly, presumably expressing his relief at being found, explaining what a terrible time he’d had, how frightening his night and day in the outhouse had been and telling me he was hungry.

‘Are you going to let me pick you up?’ I asked, I wasn’t sure he would.

But when I reached down, he let me pick him up without demur and possibly with something approaching relief, flopping against me.

Now to get him back across the road. Gulp.

I held onto his back feet with one hand and kept the other arm round him. He leaned against me rather than trying to escape to something more interesting the way he usually does. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait ages by the side of the road for a gap in the traffic. He flinched as the cars passed but didn’t try and run. Talking to him, and nuzzling his head with my cheek to reassure him, I walked briskly across the main road and down a small side road to our back gate. I managed to retrieve my keys from my pocket without dropping him, opened the gate and put him down just inside. He trotted into the garden where he was greeted by a very happy little boy.

Thank heavens for that, as now I could go to visit Mum on Wednesday without the worry of leaving McCat at large up here.

Other news, I’ve started writing again, only a little bit but I see it as a result. I have to write a story by 15th September. I have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen and who is in it, it’s just a case of whether I can write 15k in the time. McMini goes back to school on 4th so it could well happen. It depends on the Dad stuff. I still get waves of sadness and I expect I will for sometime but it seems to be a little less grim now and Mum seems a lot better too, which is brilliant, and it’s great to chat to her about it on Wednesdays. The writers’ group I’m in also met yesterday, which was great fun, as always, and just as they were leaving I got a message that the car was all fixed, which was brilliant. All the more so because the bill, though big, was much lower than I expected. It will be a while before I can get the rest of the new books edited, but perhaps not as long as I thought.

A traumatic week then! But all in all, it turned out pretty well in the end.

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20 Jul 2019 · 11:39 am

Grief

Today, I’m a bit strapped for time. I was hoping I’d find something I’d started in my drafts folder that I could just finish off. Unfortunately I didn’t. It reminds me of a story the priest at our church when I was a nipper once told, about a German colleague called Hans. Hans had endured an extremely busy time so a week came when he was able to kick back and relax, which he did. All he had to do the entire week was write a sermon for a service he was taking on the Sunday.

However, when our mate Hans sat down to write, he found himself completely devoid of inspiration. He looked up the readings for the Sunday but remained uninspired. He tried the whole week’s readings, but they, too, left him cold. He eventually procrastinated, until late on the Saturday night, when he thought about it and still found nothing. Then he remembered the point in the New Testament when someone, is it Paul? talking about the Holy Spirit says something along the lines of, ‘don’t worry what you have to say because the Holy Spirit will speak through you.’

Brilliant! Of course! Hans thought, that’s it, the Holy Spirit will speak through me. Thank God for that! He knew he’d be fine. He put down his pen, closed the notebook and went to bed.

The next morning, still no inspiration. Never mind, the Holy Spirit would speak through him, he thought. As he climbed the steps up to the pulpit finally, something popped into his head. Was this the spirit speaking to him? Yes, surely it was, but unfortunately, what it said was,

‘Hans, you have been very lazy this week.’

Like Hans, I have been very lazy. Or at least, I have not left the time required to write about the things that are inspiring me, so I thought I’d have a quick word about grief because I think it’s a topic to which I can do the most justice in the shortest possible time!

Grieving is a weird thing.

When Dad died, he was totally calm and at peace; absolutely unafraid. I felt almost happy for him because I knew it was the right thing, the only way forward; on to the next adventure.

Yes, he believed there is something in us that goes on, and I do too. This is mainly because the corpses I’ve seen have been so strikingly inanimate, so very much things. Like a car without driver, or a bicycle without anybody to pedal it, a body without … whatever it is that animates us … ain’t going nowhere. And when you see one, it’s very, very clear that there is something else important, something that’s missing.

So he’s gone. And although I wouldn’t have him back the way he was for anything, because he had lost his quality of life and he was losing himself at that point but that doesn’t stop me missing Dad.

A while back, McMini went to two nursery settings. One he was fine, the other thought he had problems and contacted me to explain that he was not able to sit still or pay proper attention to instructions, etc. At the time, I was fully prepared to discover my son was dyspraxic or dyslexic in some form or other, so I wasn’t as fazed as they were. At that point, Dad was forgetful but very much with us in all other respects so I asked his advice.

If your son can’t sit still and listen to instructions it means they’re not engaging him properly. I’d say the problem is with them not McMini. What does the other setting say? Oh, I hadn’t asked. I did. They told me that if they had a three year old boy in their charge who was actually able to sit still for ten minutes THAT is when they’d consider he had a problem. They told me McMini was very advanced in many ways, bright, cheerful, very articulate and able to do things like walk on a balance beam with an ability that was well ahead of his age.

This side of Dad, this being able to ask him advice and chat things over with him and get the same reply he’d have given pre Alzheimer’s; that didn’t disappear until, literally, the last year and a half of his life. It’s one of the things I really missed in the latter stages and despite thinking I’d probably done that bit of grieving somewhere along the line. It turns out, now he’s gone, that I haven’t. I miss that just as keenly now he’s dead. Perhaps, that particular loss is compounded by the fact that Mum has just reached the stage where, while still able to chat things over and give advice, she is no longer able to do it every time I see her.

Oh dear … this is what we’re up against.

McMini, meanwhile has been affected. He’s very scared of death, he’s just reaching that stage in life where you realise things aren’t cut and dried, black and white, and simple the way they are when you’re a kid. The point when your history lessons shift from, X did this, to we haven’t a clue WHY X did this, which is much more interesting, but also much harder, because unless someone can actually talk to X and ask them, we’ll never, ever know the true why.

McMini deals with his fears through the medium of dark humour. Some of it, though dark, is still funny. Some of it has gone beyond dark, to the point where I’ve been questioning whether or not he is actually quite disturbed. Anyone remember dead baby jokes when we were kids? (How do you make a dead baby float? Two scoops of ice cream and one scoop of dead baby.) Start there. Example, he has decided he is an Inca lord in his Minecraft game and every time it’s evening in the game, he sacrifices some villagers to the sun god. I get it, what people do to one another is scary and this trivialises it and makes it less scary, especially in a time where politics is so angry and the right wing has a seemingly relentless grip on power and is about where the Fascists sat back in the 1980s.

As a child, back in the 1980s, I remember being completely shocked by the Second World War and struggling to get my head round the atrocities of the holocaust, of how decent normal people allowed this to happen. I remember making many, many jokes about Hitler, the Third Reich etc because the whole idea of concentration camps was so gargantuan and horrific. Such immense evil was unimaginable, and also fascinating. And furthermore, very real, because I could talk to anyone over the age of about sixty and they would have been involved in it.

Clearly, in the current political landscape, where campaigning is little more than the art of organised bullying; of uniting a group of people against another group of people, convincing one set of people that another is inhuman as Goebbels described it, I’m in the privileged position of watching it happen a second time. These days, I have a much greater understanding of how Nazism came about. But back then, in the 1980s, when racism, rather than main stream, was tantamount to proclaiming yourself a massive shit with no mates, it seemed beyond understanding.

However, while McMini’s father and I reckon that, for the most part, this is just a phase, we have been warning him, for some time, that he is walking a very narrow line and that he should step back from this and rein the really sick stuff in. He hasn’t, since he has friends who share his fears and find the same release in poking fun at murder, evil etc. Bear in mind he has seen an elderly woman being abducted in broad daylight – she was looking into the back of a van. ‘You can get inside and have a closer look if you like,’ said one of the drivers. She got in and he slammed the door then he and his friend drove off laughing. We never got to the bottom of what that was. It didn’t help that I thought it was part of a crime weekend as it was just before the Christmas Fayre and I only realised it wasn’t when said crime weekend took place the following March. We reported it to the police but it was way too late by then. God knows what happened to that old woman or who the blokes in the van were.

It all came to a head at school this week, with an extremely inappropriate text sent by McMini, by mistake, to the wrong person – who was upset and whose parents were extremely upset. Nobody was horrible about it, everyone basically said, ‘your lad is lovely and we know he’s lovely and this was clearly a mistake, but he’s over-stepped the mark.’

The head master rang me, said that McMini was a little tearful about the things that frightened him and explained that he was trivialising them because it helped him feel less scared. He suggested McMini should talk to his father and I about his fears. As I have suggested to McMini many times, myself, to no avail.

It felt like a big parenting fail. Because the first person I’d have talked to about this, as a child, would have been my Mum or Dad. But I was different, and as such I was often bullied, whereas McMini, though he is also different in exactly the same ways I was, is not bullied. Indeed his unique take on the world is celebrated and loved by his friends and teachers alike, which just goes to show how splendid they all are, but also means he follows the normal path; of unity with his friends and rebellion against his parents. A path with which I am completely unfamiliar.

As a result, I can’t help but feel that I have failed him, because I hoped our relationship would be as close as mine with my parents. And while it is in some respects, he was too frightened to talk to me. Which cuts a bit. And of course, throughout his period of obsession with death, killing, murderers etc over this last couple of years, I’ve so needed to talk to someone, myself, someone who can tell me whether or not my son is deeply disturbed or just going through a phase. And that’s where grief gets you, because the person who would have done this, is Dad. And he’s gone. Forever. And the other person is Mum, but that part of her has gone, too. Double jeopardy.

In the end, it seems to have turned out OK. McMini’s humour will always be a little dark and possibly a little edgy and outrageous. That’s fine, I mean, mine is. We both of us love to shock he talks about death and murder, I talk about periods, the menopause and other ‘ladies things’. And I guess I have had that reassurance that he’s not nuts, that it’s just a phase and a way of exorcising his fears. But it came from his headmaster which was a bit chastening.

And the grief … well, the escalation in dark stuff is his and the complete over reaction to it, hell, my complete over reaction to everything that’s mine. My anger at the way people are just giving in to propaganda and allowing themselves to be manipulated into hating others. My frustration that they’re so fucking stupid, they’re letting the kind of rich, power obsessed, bastards who want to keep their faces ground into the mud deflect the blame for all the shit we’re in onto frightened, desperate, vulnerable people (either British people already living here or migrants from overseas) who have nothing left and are asking for help (just look at the fringes on the Brexit debate; both sides and the way the behaviour and views of those fringes has somehow become the main issue) that’s mine.

Or to put it succinctly, grief comes out in all kinds of weird ways, and it often catches you blind side. You won’t always expect it, and it will often knock you off your feet for a moment. I have no answers, no coping strategies. Real Life leaves no space for grief, but somehow, I think those of us who are grieving have to make some. You just have to let it out sometimes, and let it run its course. And I know at the moment, I’m too fucking busy, which is why it’s doing my head in. But I guess, we’re all like that, and if those of us who are grieving accept that it’s there, at least we can be prepared … sort of. Clearly I need to be a bit more like my cat and just chill.

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Tagged as an author with children, author blog, author blogs, author parent, dementia, grieving, I fucked this up so you don't have to, M T McGuire, McMini, off topic, writer mom, writer mum, writer parent, writers, writing