“Boy”
~ July 2016 – 10th September 2021
Not bad, old chap – five years, and three harems (eight girlfriends in total). And briefly a pigeon (she didn’t really fit in, did she…)
All my photos of you seem to be photos of the girls with you glaring judgementally in the background. Did manage to get videos of you dust bathing with sweet Bella though, and crowing like the tiny dinosaur you were.
Off you go mate. Brownie, Speckle, Heart, Cara, Bella and Donna are waiting for you. You were a good egg.
No.
If I could encapsulate my learnings from 2020 it would be the use of the word ‘no’. Not that I haven’t used it before, but previously I’ve followed it with ‘I’m afraid I can’t…’ or ‘I’m sorry but…’.
Lockdown has taught me the word ‘no’ not only doesn’t need excusing, but is better not excused.
‘Can I come in with fluffy?’ ‘No.’
‘Can we register with you?’ ‘No.’
Such responses utterly derail trains of thought.
It’s like it’s given us back ownership of our professional space. This is my space. I decide whether you can enter it. And lolz, you cannot, little potential plague victim. It’s a weird reinstatement of authority.
A complete lie. It’s long. It’s sometimes broad but mostly it’s just long.
I’m away with AnM and AnM v1.1 (who is small but has excellent taste – main goal in life is an optimistically phrased ‘ice cream?’). We shall call AnM v1.1 ‘JP’ from here on.
Trying to work through my mindfulness challenges from mum. Today’s was ‘be mindful for 5 breaths, five times today’. I think I did ok. I stared at trees and tried to be in the present. Ironically I just found out that tomorrow is as follows:
We hired a boat and as AnM was engrossed in making sure JP didn’t throw himself off boat in utter glee at my driving skills, I was skipper. Previously I’ve been no good at boat driving. Canal boats, fine – they are rear steering and you are in the rear while steering. Even as a kid my brain understood those physics. Broad boats however are more like planes I realised today. Steering is in the rear but you are midships and this mucks up the brain. I discovered today, you set the curve, follow it without moving steering wheel and when you like direction bow is pointing you move steering wheel back to centre. To clarify – centre isn’t marked. It’s a lottery to pick the right rotation of the wheel.
On previous trips I kept over compensating – zig zagging everywhere. Today I moored twice successfully. Once to get an ice cream from the ice cream boat and once to moor at the end. I actually really enjoyed it – first time I really understood how to drive boat and I got it right. Plus motor loud enough that much of the time I was restricted to gazing at nature and trying to breathe mindfully. Hope AnM and JP enjoyed it also (who am I kidding, JP had a great time).
Nibbles for dinner as we are that rock and roll. I’m expecting AnM and JP will be up earlier due to JP. I however will not. I have forwarned AnM of this.
I love this weather. In the evening that is. Not during the working day of course where I’m walking about constantly wiping the sweat off my brow before adjusting my mask and sanitising my hands. Long hard working day at work, 11 hours of running about in bad boots with a blister.
My work boots spectacularly combusted at work on Saturday (M&S boots aren’t what they were), got a massive blister trying out new boots at Shuttleworth air show on Sunday, so wore my very old boots that literally have full thickness holes in the soles today. Got things I should do. So many chores. Haven’t eaten since noon and it’s 20 past ten pm. Should ideally get an early night.
Instead I’m in my hammock, G&T in hand, listening to music, watching as the first stars come out.
Forbes: 20 Most Dangerous Places For Gay Travelers (And The 5 Safest)
I just read this. Felt weird; I fully know that Britain had a chequered history (we aren’t taught that Britain is ‘The Best TM’ – Britain’s errors are pointed out to us from age 7 onwards*). We know we were colonialists, invaders, slavers, warmongers, fought with others, fought amongst ourselves, fought with our own left foot, whatever. So I was taught all of that as a child. It’s no surprise.
So I just read this article and went ‘…oh crap…’. Interesting academically as it’s a new ‘thing to apologise for’ to me – wasn’t aware of it before. But also ‘goddamit… add it to the shame list’.
*Even when taught about the Romans we are basically told ‘the Romans came over and brought amazing advances with them. Straight roads! Organisation! Underfloor heating! Then the Roman Empire folded and we forgot all the good shit they’d introduced for 500+ years – we entered the dark ages, so named because we didn’t record shit. Forget underfloor heating, we didn’t even blog.’
So, about 12 months ago I spent a couple of months unemployed. Let go from my last placement (locum) 4th April 2020 when practices didn’t need me any more and only worked again June onwards iirc. I wasn’t sad tbh as I was a bit worried about the whole pandemic thing and happy to hide in my hovel for a couple of months. My unintentional time off (hurrah for the self-employed in covid!) coincided with a heat wave. So, I treated myself to a hammock (paid in instalments, no money coming in). I spent many an evening in that hammock in April and May as the light faded and the temperature dropped, firing up the chiminea to digest the fruits of my gardening labour while keeping me warm as the stars came out.
Fast forward to now. I’m now employed, no longer self employed as job security suddenly more important than getting paid my worth, plus tax law changed (or rather didn’t but certain companies are using it as an excuse) this March and I’m letting them lie in the beds they’ve made. I’m earning less but also spending less, just about staying solvent.
And today, as for the last few days when not working, I’m in my hammock, watching the light fade, listening to the birds, waiting for the stars to come out.
I was talking to a friend about school and describing how when I was about 12-13 I fell out with my best friends. And being an awkward loner I was walking in the woods (yes, my school had woods. It also had a mock Greek amphitheatre, get over it) alone afterwards, and this group of five or so girls from my year approached me. I was wary as – see previous – geeky and awkward so often automatically on the defensive. Plus they literally had the high ground – I was halfway down a hill at the time and I was literally looking up to them. They said ‘You broke up with your best friends. We will be your friends until you guys make up.’ I think I uselessly went ‘oh, ok’ or something. I did eventually make up with one of my friends and we remain close, but those girls also remain my friends to this day. They were 12-13yo and I was wandering in a wood and they actively found me and decided to befriend me – talk about random act of kindness.
They don’t remember this at all of course. I know because I just checked. I was telling another friend this story and realised that I never thanked them for that. So 26 years late I sent them a thank you. They didn’t remember the event. But then we started chatting. And lots of other memories came up. And we reminisced.
And then somehow I volunteered to try and get a group going for our entire year. I’m not sure how this happened.
Memo: don’t thank people. You get jobs.
Where to start…
So. 2020 was fun. There was this pandemic thing that is kinda ongoing. Caused a bit of a ruckus.
Trump lost the election! That was nice.
I took a PT job as I was unemployed for 2-3 months due to Covid which was fine the first time (I bought a hammock) but not ideally repeatable since money is finite. I still locum on the side but at least I have a reliable income for now. My practice is a good one – best in the country. But my feet itch so I keep locuming on the side.
I have a new nephew as of September 2019. He’s adorable – like a little penguin, he potters about. First year of life in lockdown and none the worse for it. Ding and I took him to Destination: Star Trek – note, babies are amazing talking points. Do recommend.
Got a new car. Still emotionally attached to the old Saab so doesn’t matter how good new car is it can never reach what my old black smoke billowing Saab was.
Up to four cats, two guinea pigs, three quail (Boy still going, I had to buy him two new girls as he’s defying all ravages of time). Took on a surrendered cat, rehomed to a friend. Took on a white dove, rehomed to my hairdresser (that was unusual).
Parents helped me drag house up to scratch – got more to do but floored my bedroom and got a new mattress, the soggiest wreck of a mattress you can imagine. It’s perfect.
Got my front garden done – really pleased. The chaps are coming back in April to do my back garden. I need to decide what I want to do before then. New front garden meant I went slightly bananas with lights at Christmas.
Worried about the virus. Still working covered in plastic but secretly would rather hide in a hole. Can’t see my family, don’t want to until we can get vaccinated. Nan got her first dose. Very pleased.
Bought a robot vacuum with a Christmas Amazon voucher gift. He’s called Walter. I love him.
Magical Trevor is ten times as slick as the last time; the last time you saw him.
Today dad came up and we defeated the Front Bed Of Doom (FBOD). Previous owner had made a ‘rockery’ which was basically alpines amongst chunks of crazy paving and lumps of concrete/aggregate. This is not sustainable unless you a) really love weeding and b) really love glyphosate (Eg Round Up). I had previously tried to defeat the FBOD by glyphosating it, removing almost all of the ‘rockery rocks’ (I have a very useful pile of crazy paving now, we only found three chunks today that I’d missed) and covering with some very substandard weed membrane from B&M (who knew weed membrane could be basically biodegradable?) and not quite enough discounted shale from Homebase before it closed. And I planted a cherry tree. Who is still mildly offended to live here but is getting over it.
Fast forward to today 18-24 months after my first attempt and we now have a thin layer of shale on top of degrading shreds of ridiculous fragile weed membrane ranging from fragments 1 inch square upwards, with weeds happily meshing the membrane into their root systems. All on top of the most disappointing soil I’ve ever encountered (note- I grew up in Essex. Our soil there is damn good clay based stuff. My frame of reference is narrow, I expect a lot. But I’m fairly sure that sandy soil 4 inches deep on top of 4 inches of building site crud (sharp sand and gravel) is Not Good Soil. Even my Lavender is sad. Luckily below all this rubbish we discovered some decent clay, albeit so firm we needed a mattock to make a dent. Go Clayhall).
Today we turned it from the first image (which I think is even then a little while in; photos courtesy of Dad as I forgot to take any) to the above image, the end result, including planting an Adam’s Laburnum (I’ve always wanted a Laburnum and the Adam’s hybrid is crossed with a broom to make it a mix of purple and yellow) and two brooms (which I bought before I discovered the hybrid Adam’s Laburnum existed). We also disentangled two pots of and a large pile of shale from the weeds, ‘weed membrane’ and said most awful soil in my existence.
Very good post Father’s Day day. Spockie was also happy as got to sit with one of his favourite humans after the work was done.
Today I have done 4 loads of washing, cleaned the hob, including removing the knobs to clean behind them, and pulled the cooker out to clean under and behind it (which was horrific, I think the first time it’s been done in 15+ years), ordered woodchip for the garden to complete the killing of the lawn, been shopping, picked up some more tiles so I can think more about tiles for the kitchen, am partially through defrosting the freezer so I may get to two drawers of food which have frozen shut, and cleaned and polished the suite.
After all that adulting I decided to do a crafting project I’ve been meaning to do for a while – decoupaging (is that a word?) the polystyrene heads that old my fancy dress wigs. I had bought some posh wrapping paper, had PVA glue which I watered down, and a brush which I eventually abandoned for hands.
As this is the first time I’ve ever done this and as I couldn’t be bothered to actually research how to do it, I started with the one that only has two papers on it; a black and white bird design similar to adult colouring books, and a coloured bird print that’s more psychedelic.
Gathering the materials
Assistance, whether I wanted it or not
In progress, eventually abandoned brush for hands so no further WIP photos!
Finished article, drying on a jam jar
