Life stuff – University & Unicorns

2 September 2023

More On Blackpool

I haven’t really spoken too much about the trip to Blackpool, have I?

To begin with, I decided on Blackpool for a place to go and see Hamish Hawk perform after a rather thorough investigation on where we (ie: myself and Em, my partner) could go for the most affordable price. I looked at getting back to Luton and seeing Hamish in Bedford, or perhaps going closer to Northampton or Leicester. Northampton used to have a balloon festival during August and I looked into matching that up in line with Hamish’s gig there. That wasn’t going to work out and I think the balloon festival is back off in Northampton anyway. I then looked at heading to the south-west of England and looked into getting to Falmouth or Exeter for one of his shows but flying was costly even though accommodation was relatively affordable.

That then left the last two dates of the tour; Chester and Blackpool. I looked at Chester first but it was fairly obvious that Blackpool was going to be easier to get to. And with the MASSES of accommodation at a seaside resort(?) like Blackpool, accommodation could be sought out more affordably. Also travel was cheap enough and I could break up the journey between coach and train. A coach to Manchester and then a train to Blackpool North. The train station was just a short walk to the venue so I hunted around for accommodation near the train station. The Happi Hotel and Spa was literally just around the corner from Blackpool North station. I then got the tickets for the gig and then sorted the accommodation through ‘booking.com’. Finally I purchased the train tickets and then the coach tickets. I booked two nights at the Happi Hotel and Spa. The gig was on Friday night, so we travelled down on Thursday, stayed Thursday and Friday nights at the hotel and travelled home on Saturday. Sweet!

As we got closer to the time of the trip, both Em and I were not feeling particularly enthusiastic about going. Everything was all paid for by then. The accommodation was paid for two weeks before we were due to stay and obviously all the transport had been paid for so…we would be out of pocket anyway if we decided not to go.

The weather was forecast to be a bit iffy while we were away so that was kind of not having us feel that good about the prospect of going away. Who wants to be at the seaside in grey, rainy weather?

To be honest, I have been wanting to go to Blackpool for YEARS! I’m ashamed it has taken me this long to go! I’ve lived in the UK for nearly 25 years now and it’s taken me this long to get to Blackpool. Bad!

The coach journey down was smooth enough. I guess the slight delay we had in setting off should have possibly given us a little indicator on how the trip was going to pan out for the return, but I was trying to remain upbeat and calm. It was just a short delay. We set off about 20 minutes later than scheduled and had made the time up in the ensuing journey down to Manchester. I made sure I left enough of a space in time between the coach’s projected arrival in Manchester to the time of the departure of the train to Blackpool. It was all good. We arrived in good time and had no worries about getting our train.

What we did find out on our arrival was that our train back to Manchester from Blackpool on Saturday was not going to be running. Northern Rail staff were going on strike on Saturday so that caused us a panic and we needed to sort an alternative way back to Manchester on Saturday, FAST! We looked into National Express and whether they had coaches that went from Blackpool to Manchester. They did, yes! And they were regular as well but they had sold out in the morning and early afternoon for Saturday. The only coach left was departing at 2.20pm and that was projected to get into Manchester coach station at 3.35pm. Our coach back to Glasgow was departing at 4.30pm. But…more on that later. Suffice it now to say that with little option, we booked the coach and then tried to enjoy the rest of the time away and put Saturday to the back of our minds.

Blackpool North train station is very handy, as was the Happi Hotel’s location and proximity to the station. There’s a big Sainsbury supermarket right there as well.

The sun was shining when we left Glasgow and it was still shining when we got to Blackpool. After checking in we took a wander down to the seafront, which was just a 10 min walk from the hotel. We then walked around the town centre, checking out where the venue was and looking at what was around it. We heard many Scots accents while there. It seems to still be a popular destination for Glaswegians in particular.

For the first night we decided to just wander about and then head back to the Sainbury’s and get some sandwiches and snacks to eat and have an early night. We’d been up early to set off. Our coach to Manchesrter left Buchanan bus station at 8.20am so we were out the door at 7.30am to get the train into Queen Street at 7.41am.

During our late afternoon stroll around town, we stumbled across a cafe within the main pedestrian square called Ziggy’s Cafe Bar (which can be sung quite nicely to the opening line of Ziggy Stardust … “Ziggy’s cafe bar…can be found in the centre of Blackpool / it’s not very far (from the Winter Gardens)”). Lol. etc. It was closed for the day but the owner was inside cleaning up and as we were standing by the door trying to have a peek inside he said “you can come in and have a look if you like” and moved the chair he had blocking the door out the way so we could walk in. It looked fabulous and I said to him that we’d be back for breakfast before we left Blackpool.

The hotel room was pokey. I booked a twin room as it had private facilities. I had initially booked a double room but it had shared bathroom facilities and…I didn’t really want to share. I had done it before but I wasn’t prepared to do it this time, so I upgraded the room to ensure we had both tea and coffee making facilities as well as a private bathroom. It was such a small room that the twin beds were side by side. More than okay for me and Em but probably wouldn’t be great for friends or people who are not that close to one another, you know? The beds were comfy enough. We had a good and long sleep.

The next day we decided on just taking things easy. Having fish and chips for lunch, then going on a tram trip before the gig. We investigated what Blackpool’s best fish and chip shop was reputed to be and as luck would have it it wasn’t very far and was only a few doors down from the venue. It was pretty good. Was it the best fish and chips I’ve ever had? Nope. Was it worth the £14 EACH that we paid for it? Nope. I’d probably try somewhere else next time. It was good, just not THE BEST, you know. Certainly not worth its price tag.

We wiled away a bit of time away down at the seafront. We walked along the north pier and enjoyed the views. Read up about the origins of Sooty. I posed for snaps in front of Blackpool Tower and then it was time to get the Heritage Tram for a coastal trip to Fleetwood and back. It was a fun wee trip and I could see that it would be particularly fun to do during illuminations season as the tramline runs along a section of the illuminations displays. We had around a half an hour to look around Fleetwood. Em spied a tattoo parlour named The Gentle Prick. Much hilarity ensued.

Blackpool itself is very LGBTQI+ friendly. There are LOTS of gay bars and people seem quite free to present themselves however they like without fear of reprisals or any of the sort. It didn’t feel unsafe at all heading back to the hotel after the gig. We only had a short walk but the streets weren’t super lively and there weren’t any sprawling drunken scenes or anything like that – perhaps it was more like that down at the seafront or closer in the town centre?

Saturday was VERY busy. I was hoping that we would get to go to Ziggy’s for breakfast. Check-out of the hotel was at 11am. We check-out around 10.30am and headed straight down to Ziggy’s for breakfast. We got a table inside. I had a light vegetarian breakfast and Em had scrambled eggs on toast. She had tea and I had a latte. We enjoyed our time there, people-watching, etc. We had a chat with a local lady who was waiting for her sister to arrive to have lunch at Ziggy’s. She nabbed our table and we got chatting for a few minutes. She wished us luck on our journey home.

A final wander down to the seafront to kill some time before we went to get the coach to Manchester. The tension in us was mounting. We knew we had just the slimmest of buffers in time between the coaches and if we missed our coach back to Glasgow then….we’d be in for a damn expense to get home. We’d already had to fork out another £26 to secure that coach from Blackpool to get us back to Manchester due to the train strike.

We arrived at the coach station early. It was really warm. Despite the forecast for a mix of sunshine and showers while we were away, we’d been blessed with mostly sunny weather the whole time we were there. The only time it appeared to rain was when we were inside having our fish and chip dinner on Friday.

The coach arrived early. It was at the stand by 1.45pm. But the driver had informed us that we’d be setting off a little later than scheduled. But there would be two coaches. He didn’t really explain why we’d be setting off late – but the reason was explained (rather grudgingly) later on. Oh, the whole thing became a real farce. The guy was an absolute fucking jobsworth! The driver of the other coach was not a National Express driver so he was unable to mark passengers off and get us onto the coach. It had to be done by Mr Jobsworth. He wanted to get the Huddersfield, Leeds and Hull passengers boarded on his coach first, which left all us Manchester passengers (and extra Leeds passengers) hanging about waiting to be boarded on the second coach. I mean…the other driver was not allowed to do ANYTHING because he needed to have his allocated break. He had to have his full break time before he was allowed to drive again. That seemingly also meant he couldn’t let us passengers even get our luggage loaded into the coach or anything. By this point Em and I were starting to freak out. Our buffer to make it to Manchester on time for our coach back to Glasgow was shrinking fast.

It was meant to be a 75 minute journey from Blackpool to Manchester. If the motorways were flowing nicely and there were no jams or any other slowdowns then even with a 20 minute delay in setting out, we might just make it. The added tension was that we were changing from a National Express coach onto a Megabus coach – they use separate coach stations. So once we got into Manchester, we had to leg it to the Megabus station at Shudehill. We also learned from a conversation that was going on with some of the passengers in the queue that it was Pride weekend in Manchester and there was a street parade happening. Oh, fabulous! The streets would be CARNAGE!

To say that Em and I were quite pent up by this point would be a slight understatement. Em far more so than me. I was trying to keep myself calm and remain pragmatic about the whole situation.

As we set off, I just kept praying that the roads kept flowing and were clear of jams. It went really well. All the way until we got to Salford the roads flowed and we made it in really good time. REALLY good time! We hit Salford around 3.30pm. Then it was a crawl from there into the coach station. I said to Em at that point that if it took us 40 minutes to make this last bit of the journey we’d still have time to leg it to the Shudehill exchange and make the Glasgow coach. It took a half an hour to make that last little bit of the journey. THIRTY MINUTES to travel like…three or four miles. Manchester was HOACHIN’! I dunno how we bloody did it, but we made it! We got to the coach station at 4.20pm. It was like salmon swimming upstream trying to get to the coach station. I had to ask people on the way as Google Maps was giving me a bum steer. A young woman said to just keep our sights on the Arndale and we’d get there. That’s what we did. I remembered where it was in proximity to the Arndale on our arrival.

Of course then because the roads in and out of Manchster were a heaving bloody mess, the coach to Glasgow was delayed by over an hour. But by then it didn’t matter. We’d made it. We were getting home!

It wasn’t quite over, yet. The delay in arrival time into Glasgow meant that we would have to leg it (once again) down to Queen Street to get the train home. We arrived at Buchanan Bus Station at 9.20pm. I knew there was a train back to Ashfield leaving at 9.33pm. We got to Queen Street at 9.29pm. We still had to buy tickets. I was hoping that the ticket counter would still be open. It was. I rushed in. Damn the expense. “Two singles to Ashfield, please” (returns are usually cheaper to buy but I knew it would add to the faff – and Em has her Saltire card which means her ticket should be cheaper again but I just didn’t want the delay!). The man at the counter could see I was in a rush. He got the tickets printed pronto. I tapped to pay. Done! We ran to the barrier, rushed through and made it onto the train at 9.31pm! PHEW! It would have been an hour wait for the next train had we missed this one.

Apart from Saturday’s stressful journey home, Blackpool was great. I really enjoyed it and I’d love to return there to see the illuminations. I’m hoping that maybe that can happen in the autumn of 2024 for my 54th birthday – but we’ll see.

1 September 2023

Believe In Better

For as defeated and melancholy I was feeling yesterday, I just wanted to be kind to myself and allow myself to “ride it out.” Let the storm pass. Hope for a better tomorrow. Because it does happen!

It did happen. Today is better. Still not 100% and it would take the slightest thing of something to topple me over again. There are things that if I dwell on them will bring me down. Jim. The Minds fandom. The state and future of my blog (the Priptona one). How mentally prepared (or otherwise) I am for the recommencement of uni next month. My partner’s mental health (always a VERY big cloud hanging over things, if I am being incredibly open and frank). Finances (or lack thereof).

But…I’ve had a shower today and I’ve washed my hair. I know there are many people that won’t get that. People that don’t understand the kind of effort that can take sometimes. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get very angry with myself. A lot of the time, in fact. I was angry with myself yesterday. I wasn’t comfortable with posting what I posted on my blog yesterday. I sounded like I was just wallowing in self-pity. At the same time and as much as I tried to push myself, I tried being kind. Allow myself the time to hope that the bad would pass.

Some of the feeling also is dictated by having someone else living in my home. A person that makes me feel like a tenant in my own home. I am very mindful of accommodating them and working my day around theirs. They are moving out in a couple of weeks and I am looking forward to being “liberated” and being able to return to doing things in my house when I want to. From when I begin my study day to when I go to the toilet in the middle of the night. All of that! All of that has weighed on my mind for 21 months. Silly little accommodations, you know?

For instance…I’ll settle into bed around 11pm. I’ll listen to The Arches and a couple of podcasts, then be ready to settle to sleep around midnight. My brain and body are ALWAYS insistent that I need one last trip to the loo. But I’ll try not to go. I’ll ignore it. But that invariably means I’ll awake again a couple of hours later with a more urgent need to go, which I’ll also try and ignore. I feel like I am having the most interrupted sleep. These days, once I do get up and go to the loo in the wee hours I find it very hard to get back to sleep.

I’m just looking forward to getting up and going as and when I need to without having to consider someone else. I’m looking forward to a better sleep pattern once again. Maybe it won’t happen? Maybe I’m in a menopausal phase and that’s what’s disrupting my sleep pattern? I feel as though I will be less stressed anyway and that will help me.

My study days will begin earlier too. I will most likely begin my days between 9-9.30am, whereas currently I feel compelled to wait until after 10am (when my lodger’s work day begins). I know that doesn’t sound like much – but when you’re a morning thinker and you have ideas and things pop into your head and you want to get going with your day – thoughts pinging in left, right and centre but you feel like it would be rude to just get up and go and start your day, then yes – it makes a BIG difference.

I tried again with the Too Good To Go app and have a couple of new surprise bags to collect today. My Other Half will collect one (taking advantage of the free “old gits” travel she gets on the bus network) this afternoon and I’ll get the other one early this evening. I was able to secure a collection with the George Street Oaka, which is much more handy and easier to get to. A train to Queen Street, a quarter mile walk up George Street and I’m right there. I can collect and get the next train home. It can all be done within the space of an hour. Hurray! And this time I am prepared. Showered and ready to go in later today.

Finally, I realise that I haven’t even shared much from the time away in Blackpool last week. Although elements of it were stressful, in particular the journey back home to Glasgow, we did have some fun while we were away and really enjoyed aspects of the trip. I’d like to share select photos of the time away.

Thanks for listening. I know it’s not easy to read bad stuff and I am guilty as anyone else in trying to give off this air that I am fine and dandy all the time and life’s a peach every single day but the cold, hard truth is…it isn’t. It gets the better of me. I can get very low and dark and I have spent a long time trying to shield people from that.

I have a love/hate relationship with that “it’s okay not to be okay” phraseology, because although it is inherently true…I myself do NOT feel ‘okay’ with not feeling okay – if you get me?

Having said that – today is better.

*Panoramic views of Blackpool North pier and the tower*

Ziggy’s Cafe Bar in Blackpool. The owner let us in while he was cleaning so we could take photos of the decor. He’s been open for seven years. Some of the memorabilia was donated to him by cafe patrons and Bowie fans.

*Various photos of Blackpool, Fleetwood and sights in between.*

31 August 2023

Some Days

Some days I struggle to overcome it. I start the day with all the best of intentions. I get up at a decent hour and don’t necessarily feel ‘bad’ when the day begins. This morning, for example. I woke up just after 7am and was ready to get out of bed by the time the alarm went off at 7.30am. I felt okay. The weather was forecast to be good. If not sunny all day long then at least dry with no rain due. It is now 3pm and although it has been a little overcast at times it has remained dry.

Last night I booked a collection on the Too Good To Go app for food at Oaka on New City Road. I have been wanting to try them out for a couple of weeks. I got very excited last night when finally I was able to reserve a surprise bag to collect this evening.

This morning I even booked an extra collection. A surprise bag from Starbucks in the Buchanan Galleries.

I had put off taking a shower this morning. I wanted to try and do some writing – I managed about 280 words of writing – potentially for a writing competition. It wasn’t really much. I should be happy I did something! Even if it was a meagre 280 words. It’s two hundred and eighty more words than I have managed to write within the past two weeks. At least when it comes to fictional prose.

As the morning raced away and then lunchtime followed, I wanted to get some reading done as well. I started my continuation of Jean Rhys’s Quartet but I was distracted and only read two pages.

A little earlier, looking up the info of where the Starbucks cafe was located inside the Buchanan Galleries, I noticed that you could cancel a reservation up to two hours before collection. I contemplated it but decided against it. Once I was showered, I’d feel more eager to go in and collect my foodstuffs.

Except I was growing increasingly lacklustre and disinterested in taking a shower. Some days, demotivation is all-consuming. My personal black clouds grew ever larger and darker. I just didn’t want to face that shower. But I couldn’t wander out without one! The thought of my unwashed hair being seen repulsed me. I thought about wearing a hat just to hide it.

I looked again at where the Oaka diner was on New City Road. A section of NCR is right near Cowcaddens subway station. I got momentarily excited at the idea of it being easier to get to than I had anticipated. It was near Chinatown, right? I could look at the Chinese supermarket there. Erm…no. New City Road continued over the other side of the M8 closer to St George’s Cross. This then meant that if I wasn’t going to walk, I’d have to take the train to Queen Street (hence I reserved the Starbucks bag) and catch the subway to St George’s Cross.

This morning, when in better spirits I had even contemplated walking to the diner. I looked at the time. It was 2.30pm. By the time I had showered – if I was to shower there and then…well. Oh, and there was Starbucks first, which if I walked meant I would need to walk further into the city first, then back again to Oaka. No, I don’t want to shower. I can’t be arsed.

I was trying to read. I wanted to write something. I looked at my pictures of Jim on my wall. “You are sssooo beautiful. So very beautiful. Just look at you. I miss you so very much.” I cried. Just stay home. Cancel the orders. Don’t bother having a shower. Then you can read.

Let’s try again tomorrow. It might be better.

22 August 2023

Libraries And Learning

I feel I need to write a little more here. It seems it should be a natural progression that while my Priptona Weird blog is on its downwards trajectory that the University & Unicorns blog should be on the ascent – at least in terms of the frequency of my posts and interactions with said blogs, right?

I’ve certainly been more focused on the aspect of my creative writing and uni study than I have with music and more to the point, Simple Minds music.

*A sign of things to come (a street traversed heading to the university library. It was missing an R though…)*

Certain other struggles abound. I find my mood fluctuating wildly at present. Mostly I feel incredibly insular and I rarely seek the company of others. I have always been pretty comfortable in my own company which makes it very weird that I should find myself permanently craving the attention of one person in particular and I don’t seem to be able to shut this desire off. That I just don’t have enough self-esteem or self-belief to banish that desire and get away from it. I get eternally angry with myself for not being able to let this desire go because I KNOW how unhealthy it is and I know that this person really couldn’t give a flying fig about me….and yet. And yet.

I just needed to air that thing here.

I haven’t been writing any fictional prose over the past 10 days. I’ve entered two writing comps and want to enter a few more before my new uni module starts. I had intentions of writing for much longer entries for a couple of writing comps – ones with entries that required a minimum of 2000 words written but I haven’t started on any of them. I’m not going to pressure myself. The fact that I have actually entered comps is good and I definitely will be entering a few more before uni starts back up.

As well as making sure I am continuing to write I am making sure that I am reading as well.

Last Monday (14 August), I took myself to Possilpark library (my most local branch of Glasgow libraries to my home) with an application form that I had picked up a few days before from the Hillhead branch that I had since filled out – and got myself a library card – AT LAST. Because Covid had struck barely three months after we moved to Glasgow (and also bearing in mind I was in Sydney for a month around Christmas of 2019), we hadn’t had the chance to get signed up to the library when the first lockdown happened. We did get temporary access to the library’s online resources but then the branches were closed for extended periods of time, etc, etc. When restrictions finally lifted and life went slowly back to normal, I was in the middle of study and had other things going on and I just didn’t find the time to get membership to Glasgow libraries sorted. Until now.

*It feels very surreal to have this. Hate my photo. My head is shaped like a bell(end), but hey ho. Lol. I never wanted to win a beauty prize.*

So now, not only am I FINALLY a cardholder of Glasgow libraries and have an ASTONISHING 32 branches across Glasgow at my choosing to visit (with Possilpark, Springburn, Milton, Woodside, Maryhill, the GoMA, The Mitchell and Hillhead branches all within my most immediate proximity for visitation and use) – over the past week I applied to have access to the University of Glasgow library under the UK universities SCONUL scheme. SCONUL access allows students from one particular university to gain access to the libraries of other universities around the country. So, I as an Open University student applied for SCONUL access. With that access granted, I was then able to apply to the University of Glasgow for access to their library – all TWELVE FLOORS of it. I was granted a card, which I collected from the library yesterday. I then spent a few hours investigating the library space. Checking out the various floors, the books on offer, the study spaces and…the views of Glasgow therein. OMG – the views from the upper levels of the library! There is almost a 360* view of the Glasgow skyline from there. And a lot of the study spaces face the window, so…you have that amazing panorama spread out in front of you. Okay, you might have your head buried in books for the most part while you’re studying – but when you need to take a breather, there is Glasgow right out there in front of you.

I began my exploration on Level 9. That’s where the English and English bibliography books were. I had no sense of scale from the floor plan of the library. It seemed as if it was going to not be a very big space with not that many books but OH MY WORD! There are THOUSANDS of books in there. I mean, the majority of books on the shelves are from authors and writers considered to be “in the canon”, with several copies of books of their work. Some of them are very, very old! I used up a good hour just on this floor, scouring the rows and rows of books.

From there I went down to Level 6 – this is where the Russian and East European books were meant to be but I got lost trying to find where they were, despite looking at the floor plan. I just could not find where they were. I decided to try again another time. Or to wait until I can book a guided tour of the library (they do guided tours twice a day at 11am and 2.15pm).

Next I went up to Level 12 as there is a viewing platform up there and I wanted to look at the views of Glasgow. When I got up there though, it seemed as if access was via appointment only which seemed odd – but I think it was the archival section of the library that was only accessible by appointment only and the viewing platform was accessible around the other side – I just didn’t know how to get there. Bugger! I’ll try again another time.

Down to Level 3 next and to the “high demand” area and group study areas – as well as the cafe. The cafe had just closed, so my plan to get myself a coffee and take a breather was scuppered. The “high demand” section is CRAZY! These books are deemed to be in such … high demand … that you can only loan them for 24 hours and some of them for as little as FOUR HOURS! Can you imagine? Being able to borrow a book for only 4 hours?!

Lastly, I decided I’d check out Level 4 – which I thought rather strangely, for a university, has junior fiction and non-fiction sections as well as the music section. Well, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked down one of the music book shelves and there were archival folders stuffed with copies of Sounds magazine dating back from 1981! I nearly died of excitement stumbling upon this pot of gold! I turn the corner to walk down the next row of shelves and there’s only bloody NME and Melody Maker mags archived as well! Neither of them date quite as far back as the Sounds archive but still. I was stunned! I even found a little bit in one of them that seemed very appropriate and timely. Little did I think I’d be stumbling across Jim at the University of Glasgow library…in a manner of speaking.

*The Sounds archive and the man himself in the pages of a copy*

Did I borrow a book? No. I was a little too intimidated by it all yesterday. Overall it was quite the jaw-dropping experience and I will DEFINITELY be frequenting the uni’s library as often as I can.

Before heading to the UofG’s library, I popped into Hillhead library. I had a book to return that I had borrowed from the Possilpark branch that I had just finished reading. I know! I read the book in just TWO sessions! I KNOW! It was only 160 pages long – but yes! Hark at me and my “speedy reading”. Lol

I promised myself I wouldn’t borrow too many books – even though you can borrow up to 12 books at any time with Glasgow libraries, we all know I don’t read that fast! I couldn’t help myself though and came away with 4 books. Two books by Jean Rhys. I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea so much that when I saw two of her novels on the shelf, I had to borrow them. The other two I was taken with their titles initially – for very differing reasons. But then they both reeled me in with their synopses. The photo below shows the titles. How could I walk past a title like The Pheasant Plucker – I mean, come on! Lol

So now I have much reading to do!

*The views of Glasgow from various floors of the university library*

13 August 2023

Winched To Safety (aka Special View)

I haven’t worked on it for several months. It got pushed aside once I started working on The Gudmut for my uni assignment. It had been a potential frontrunner but the The Gudmut just grew legs and ran.

I chose to add the photo of myself at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to this post as it was exactly the beach that I had envisaged all the years I’d been conjuring up a particular image of a beach when listening to the Simple Minds song “Special View”. I always saw young lovers meeting up at a beachfront by a wave-breaker and so Winched To Safety was my attempt to write out a scene involving these two young lovers I saw in my mind’s eye when listening to the song.

So…here goes nothing! As I say, I’ve not worked on it since late April or early May so there’s probably aspects of it I’d change now if I read it before posting it but I wanted to keep it as it was when I left, if for no other reason than to log just how much my writing has changed within the space of a few months. (P.S. You may need to be a Glaswegian or au fait with your Scots vernacular to get the pun intended with the title of the story.)

Winched To Safety

Caught in a reverie she is only vaguely conscious of the sound of the waves lapping at the shore edge. Little gurgling gulps that clap at the already wet and compacted sand. There is a crisp chill to the air. She sits upon the concrete windbreaker that stretches along the beach for hundreds of yards. She told him she’d meet him here at this part of the wall near where it juts out and has a row of bench seats for the sand-weary beachgoers to sit on. Some people that come here just like to walk the promenade and take in the view and never actually walk along the shore or pitch up on the sand. Fewer still take a swim in the ocean. That’s for the gallus and gleakits. Alicia is not one of them. She is among the majority that enjoys the view and the sea air but never sits on the sand. She rarely takes off her shoes and walks along the shoreline. It needs to be particularly warm weather for that to happen and today is not one of those days. Besides, she’s waiting for John and he won’t know where to meet her if she is walking along the shoreline or the promenade.

Taking a second to lift her head from being sunk down and almost buried between her clavicles, she spots him walking towards her. He’s looking out to sea as he strides along. He called her this morning and asked her to meet him at the beach at five o’clock. He had work until four and needed an hour to get from work to here. He sounded tense when he called. It was one of those ‘can we talk?’ calls. Why do people do that? Make a call in which they ask ‘can we talk?’, only to arrange a time for a meeting in which this talk will take place? Why not just say it there and then? Why make such a mystery of it? God, people are bloody weird, Alicia concluded. John was just her kind of weird though. Sort of exotic to her. Not exactly a man’s man. He didnae do the usual guy things. She liked the way he could be both gallus and shoogly at the same time. There was a strange kind of beauty in the way he carried himself. She thought he was stunning and every time she saw him her heart melted away just a little bit mair. It would melt even mair if he smiled his uneven smile at her. It was not his teeth that were crooked. It was the shape of his mouth. The way his lips curled slightly upwards at the sides so that even if his face appeared otherwise expressionless, his mouth always belied a smile of some kind.
As he neared closer Alicia could see he wasn’t smiling but his mouthed always smiled in spite of itself. Her stomach churned into a somersault. Her insides tensed as he reached her. Why did he look so gloomy? He took a seat beside her.

“Hey.”
“What’s up? I’ve been fretting about this ‘can we talk’ all day.”
“Oh, ah didnae mean to make you worry. It’s nothing really. Well, ah hope it’s nothing.”
“Okay. So, what is it?”
“Kenny said he saw you with Dougie the other day. He said you looked ‘cosy’. He reckons you were winching him.”

From her bowed-head position in which she had barely been acknowledging John or her surroundings, she twists her head to face him and stares in furrowed incredulity.

“Whit you aon aboot? With Dougie? Why would I? And not even with Dougie but with anyone for that matter?”
“Ah dunno. That’s whit he told me. He swatched you and Dougie winching.”
“And…you believe him?”
“Naw. That’s why ah’m asking.”
“Well, if you’re asking then you must believe him.”
“So, you deny it?”
“Of course ah deny it! It never happened! Ah mean…mon! It’s DOUGIE. He’s a pal and all and ah like him but DEFINITELY naw like THAT! Why would you even HINK I’d get with him?”
“People talk.”
“Whit ‘people’? Whit is this, John? Is this your way of breaking up with me? ‘It’s not me, it’s you’. Is that it?”
“No. Ah widnae do that. Ah dinnae wanna break up with you. Ah…ah…Ah’m sorry, okay. Ah messed up.”
“Aye. You did. A dunno whit Kenny hinks he saw but he didnae swatch me winching Dougie bloody Maguire. IAh’d never do that to you. Ever. Not to you. Not to any guy ah was with. Jeez-o!”
“Ah’m sorry.”

John takes Alicia’s left hand. She tries to resist at first but then relaxes and allows him to take hold. He wraps it into both of his and gently begins stroking the back of her hand with his left hand. Alicia returns to her sunken-head position, outcasting all external distractions and stimuli. It takes a while for her to simmer down. She begins to calm from the feeling of her hand nestling in John’s and from his stroking. Her racing heart is slowly returning to normal. He really doesn’t know, does he? He has absolutely no idea how much she loves him. She fears he doesn’t care but given what has been said maybe he does? No, that’s just jealousy. That’s not love, surely?

John looks away and out to shore, his inner thoughts a mangle of words swirling around inside his head. Oh, man. I’ve blown it. I really like Alicia. Actually, the hing is, I hink I love her. Naw. I mean I actually DO love her. She’ll think it’s pish if I tell her the noo. Why did I listen to that gleakit? What would Kenny know anyway? He’s a bam.

He looks down, gazing at Alicia’s hand in his, then looks up wanting to see her face. She’s looking down at her lap. Loosening his grip on her hand he motions to get up off the wall.
“Ah’m gonna go.”
Grabbing on to his right hand as he starts to pull away, Alicia pleads, “Wait! Please! Can we take a donder along the promenade? I have something to say. Ah just needed a minute.”
“Sure.”

They walk a little way along the promenade. All the time Alicia has been trying to conjure up the courage to say what she wants to say to him. The breeze has picked up since she arrived and it carries the saltiness of the sea in its strength. As she wets her lips to speak, the saltiness reaches her mouth and brings with it a brief attack of nausea. Her nerves almost get the better of her. Nothing can be gained by remaining silent. Still holding John’s right hand in her left, she slows her pace and leans upon the windbreaker. He stands beside her. She turns to stand in front of him.
“The first time ah keeked you, ah knew. You were so different to any guy I’d met before. The way you can be so… Gallus but shy. The way you are with your pals. The way you smile at strangers, even the jakies and the bams. The way you treat your maw and da. Everything. Your hair, your face, your eyes. I feel boak saying it but I pure love everything about you. The way your ears stick out. The way you laugh. You cackle like a wee hyena. You melt my heart. I adore you. And I would never, EVER kiss someone else while I’m with you. I’d never want to. You’re everything. The whole package. I love you.”

He smiles that proper smile. Broad and brilliant.
“Ah thought I fucked this up. Ah dinnae know why ah paid any notice of Kenny, the shite wee bawbag. Ah wanted to say it after. Ah wanted to tell you that ah love you but ah thought you’d hink it was me just saying it for the hell of it. That you’d be too fumin’ to care or think ah was being real. You’re braw, you are, Alicia. Ah love you n aww.”

They lean into each other. Sweeping strands of hair away with gentle fingers, John looks into Alicia’s eyes. She’s got eyes the colour of Bucky bottles. Bucky gives him the boak, but he loves her eyes. Their lips meet. Now the salt tastes good, Alicia’s inner voice whispers to her.

She remembers the first time they met and the first time they kissed. Now that was a winch! Not an accused winch. Not a winch that didn’t actually happen but a real one. She’s sure that the thing she loves most about John is his lips. Those ones that permanently curl into that fixed smile of his. John ‘luscious lips’ Lachlan. That’s what he’d been from that day on.

“Ah was never going to stay angry with you. Kenny’s a bolt and ah cannae believe that you actually took anything he said for real. I was fumin’, aye. But if you didnae care, why would you be jealous? That’s what I was hinking anyway,” Alicia said once they stopped winching.

“Can I come back to your bit?” he asks her.
“Aye. You might even get a lumber…mabbies.” Now it’s her time to smile.

5 August 2023

The Russians

A good friend suggested that I read the Russians (reading is as much a part of the process of writing as anything else). Although I’ve read Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I’ve not read anything else by any other Russian author. The idea of reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, et al scares me. I’ve been recommended to read Nabokov, which I will do – as he might just be a little more accessible than the other two. If for no other reason than length and volume of dialogue. I’d like to read other Bulgakov works too at some point.

Myself and the OH went to Milngavie yesterday and we ended up perusing an Oxfam shop there. It had a decent book section. I have come to the idea of trying to pick up at least one book from a charity shop each time I am near one and so yesterday I was determined to leave Milngavie’s Oxfam shop with one book in my hands.

Well, blow me down. I found this! I’ve never heard of this author, but their name is obviously Russian. I checked out the details of the book and was taken with it being a collection of short stories. That appealed to me. The price also appealed as most other books I looked at with some initial interest to purchase were selling for £2.99. Mr Turgenev’s offering was a more appealingly priced £1.99. So, Mr Turgenev came back with me from Milngavie. I’m looking forward to diving into its pages.

3 August 2023

An Update On The Uni Downtime

I have to say that I’ve taken a real dive in mood recently. The only thing that has given me any real positivity of late has been my A112 module results for uni.

I have entered my first piece of creative writing prose into a competition but despite what the rules/guideline for entry states, I’ve had no acknowledgement of my entry so I am just slightly concerned that my email has gone into their spam folder and will never be seen. Yay!

I have another piece I’ve been working on for entry into a short story comp the writer’s magazine I’m subscribed to runs. I still need to iron it out. The deadline for that is on the 15th.

Yesterday I started on another one to enter into the Oxford Flash Fiction prize, but I am worried that what I have written for it is waaaaaaay too dark. I don’t want to say any more about it or give any detail on the story as it has to be unpublished work that is entered.

So, yes, despite my low mood I have tried to keep myself focused on my writing and getting some stories developed, etc. It’s hard not to write darkly when you’re down.

I guess the Simple Minds tour news hasn’t helped the situation but I am not admitting that to anyone else but myself (and whoever reads this – definitely not my OH or certain close friends read any of my blog stuff…and that’s okay. It lends a certain freedom to what I feel I can say here, if I need to air things) and I am trying not to dwell on it because there is no changing the situation.

I was meant to go to a gig on Tuesday night but I felt so low and so dark I just couldn’t motivate myself to go out. Actually, I was in a state of panic thinking about going so I decided it was best not to as I was just trying to fight a nervousness that wouldn’t calm down – until I made the decision not to go. I then spent the rest of the night really down on myself for not having the strength to pull myself out of such an awful state of panic.

So I am just trying to keep creative. I try to write every day, even if it isn’t much, or it’s for the blog (the other blog) or some other non-fiction writing rather than fictional prose or short story writing for competitions. Anything that means I am typing away and getting words down on a page, or on the screen.

I’ve just gone over the halfway point of my uni break. I don’t feel like I’ve been as productive as I would have liked but I am at least writing and…I’ve entered a comp! Even if I’m worried that my entry has gone nowhere and I’ve had no confirmation that it was received.

I’ll try my best to keep the old stiff upper lip – pull the old socks up and just…get on with things.

Adios amigos.

18 July 2023

Uni Results

I can’t go into too much detail, just … in accordance with Open University study rules, I need to be careful not to divulge too much. I can’t reveal exact results but what I will say is I have been marked higher than I had hoped for or expected and I am very, VERY happy with my results.

It has reassured me that I am on the right path and that Creative Writing is definitely the subject I want to progress through.

After a crappy and disappointing past 48 hours, I feel upbeat and grateful.

By way of celebrating, I’m going to place a photo of this beautiful adonis here to gawk over to my heart’s content.

Photo courtesy of Horst Waschinski.

12 July 2023

A Day Exploring Newcastle

Myself and my Other Half were in Newcastle over the weekend. The primary purpose for me was to see my second favourite band in the whole world – Warm Digits – play the Old Coal Yard near the Byker and Ouseburn areas of the city. You can read more about that on my review on the Priptona Weird blog.

To try and save on funds and to make the logistics of getting to and from the venue easier, I decided to book a room for us at a hotel called the Dorset Arms at Wallsend. It seemed like it was a short-ish walk from the Metro station to get to the hotel but actually it was longer than I had anticipated and interpreted on the map. Straightforward though. Just taking a straight walk down to the hotel for around 1 mile.

The hotelier, Stan, was a really friendly and helpful guy and offered me a lift to Wallsend metro station closer to the time of the gig. In the end he dropped me off right near the venue which I was very thankful for as the heavens were open by that time and it would have been a bit of a walk from Byker metro to the venue.

Exterior and interior (of our room) of the Dorset Arms Hotel at Wallsend

The gig was great and I had quite a late night, but we needed to be out of the hotel by 10am the next day. I was out of bed and in the shower by 7.45am having had around 4 hours sleep by the time I eventually drifted off.

The weather was much better on Sunday and the air was already warm early in the morning. A change from our last visit to Newcastle which although sunny was VERY windy and still quite cold. This time it was ‘taps aff’ by comparison.

After a fantastic buffet and cooked breakfast at the hotel (we just had scrambled eggs on toast for the ‘cooked’ side of our breakfast), Stan was kind enough to give us a lift to Wallsend metro. We got to Monument station at around 10.30am and decided to head to the Quayside with a view of checking out the Baltic art gallery. There’s a street market down along the Quayside Road running along the banks of the Tyne between the Tyne and Millennium Bridges with all kinds of wonderful foodstuffs and crafts on offer. It was absolutely hoachin’ down at the Quayside.

The view from the Baltic ‘viewing box’ on level five

After a slow wander through the market stalls we crossed the Millennium Bridge to get to the Baltic. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the Baltic – whether there would be a fee to pay to get in as most galleries in England these days charge an admission fee, if not for the main gallery space itself, then definitely for access to exhibitions that are on. To my joy and wonderment, the Baltic was free. We went up to the fifth floor which has a ‘viewing box’ – an area to stand and take in the views of the city overlooking the Tyne. From there we made our way back downwards, exploring what each level of the gallery had to offer. On levels 3 and 2 was an exhibition by artist Larry Achiampong. The exhibition is called Wayfinder and comprises several different visual displays and art installations. Flag designs, traveller-explorer-cum-spacesuit outfits that are worn and featured in his video documentary pieces called Relic. There were also chalk boards with repetitive words to be read out as instructions or slogans.

We sat and watched several of his video docs. All three of the Relic pieces, as well as Wayfinder itself. All the information on the layout of the whole exhibition can be viewed on the Baltic website HERE

I found the whole exhibition really moving, especially the video pieces. They were beautifully filmed, evocative, wonderfully scripted and very poignant. Larry gives a very powerful voice to British African people through his art. I don’t say this with any measure of flippancy or glibness at all when I say it is one of the most moving and beautiful exhibitions of contemporary art that I have ever encountered. So much so, I had to let Larry know how much his exhibition spoke to me and contacted him via Instagram to let him know how profound I found his work. He replied with a voice message to me on Instagram thanking me for my words and was pleased to hear that his work had moved me so much.

The exhibition runs until 29 October. If you are in Newcastle at any point up til this date (or you are a local Geordie), I implore you to check out Larry Achiampong’s exhibition. It is stunning.

Highlights of the Larry Achiampong ‘Wayfinder’ exhibition

On level 1 was an exhibition by the photographer Chris Killip. Absolutely stunning photos, particularly the portraiture. Most of the photos were depicting life in the North-East in the mid 1970s until the early 1980s. All the photos are black and white. Most were quite large images too – A3 and A2 sized prints. Again, visually evocative and poignant. I’d also highly recommend seeing Chris Killip’s exhibition as well. The exhibition is on until 3 September.

With just a couple of hours left until the coach back to Glasgow was due to depart, we made our way back to the city centre. The plan was to get something to eat to see us through the rest of the day as we weren’t due to get back to Glasgow until just after 8pm. On our way up Pilgrim Street we stumbled across the Town Fry. It doesn’t get the best rating via Google Maps but to be honest, I hadn’t looked at the ratings until after we’d eaten there. It was there, it was handy and the cod bites and chips were affordable at £7 each. It was quiet and there were seats for us to sit and eat inside. It was cooked fresh while we waited. The chips were delicious! As was the generous sized piece of cod. It filled our bellies more than amply for the journey back home.

We popped into Greggs as well for a hot beverage and a yum yum. I gotta say, Greggs are bloody good value compared to the likes of Costa, Starbucks and Caffe Nero. A tea is £1.15, a latte is £1.95 and a box of two yum yums was £1.35. If you were to get something similar in one of the coffee chains it would set you back at least DOUBLE that price, if not more.

We got to the coach station a little early – around 3.45pm for the coach at 4.10pm. Well, that’s when it was due but a driver that had come in on a coach from Manchester had informed one of the other passengers waiting for the Glasgow coach that it was running an hour late – caught up in floodwater back in London when it started out its journey north. So, 4.10pm actually did become 5.10pm.

I don’t know what it is about the coach to Newcastle but it feels like it takes so much longer than the four hours it only does take. I think it must be down to the stops it makes along the way. I don’t know. But the four hours seem to pass sssooo slowly on the coach.

We eventually arrived at Buchanan Bus Station at 9.20pm. It being a Sunday night there are no trains to Ashfield after 6.30pm on Sundays so it was taxi or the 75 to Milton. A 75 was due at 9.35pm so we legged it out of the bus station to get ourselves to Hope Street in time for the 75 – only for the bugger to be 10 minutes late! Although after a few minutes it was indicating on the electronic board that the due bus wasn’t even running late, it was just not going to arrive at all! Thankfully, it did arrive, albeit 10 mins late.

Arrived home exhausted but happy from a lovely little whirlwind trip away to Geordieland. Newcastle is starting to become the new ‘home away from home’, and the great news is that the OH likes the place just as much as I do – so I think we may just get to have a couple of trips a year away down there in future. She won’t need too much persuading, which is grand!

Now, back to getting some creative writing done! (P.S. Less than a week to go until I find out my uni results.)

6 July 2023

How’s That Summer Break Going?

Hello! It’s been a wee while. I was hoping that I would be posting here a little more than I have during the summer break away from uni.

I guess June was kinda crazy. Busy here and there. A few gigs and one that I couldn’t make due to Glasgow receiving a downpour of biblical proportions. I set out to go and made it as far as Buchanan Street then spent 45 minutes sheltered under a shop frontage before trying to continue on to the venue before finally and swiftly admitting defeat and heading home.

Towards the end of June I started getting my teeth into writing. I’ve taken out a subscription to a writing magazine and an online membership to their website. I’ve compiled a list of writing competitions that I am interested in entering over the next few months and have already been busying myself with researching and writing down ideas and actual fictional content and short stories.

I’m also reading as well. I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and am currently around a quarter of the way through reading Thackery’s Vanity Fair.

I am also still a consumer of podcasts and have recently been enjoying series two of Uncanny, as well as a few documentary style podcasts – one called Shiny Bob about the Edinburgh judicial system. Another titled A Very British Cult, about a life coaching ‘company’ called Lighthouse – which I’m quite bloody scared to mention here to be honest, given how they were portrayed.

Currently I am nearing the end of a podcast on the K-pop sex scandal. It’s called Burning Sun and is a series aired as part of the Intrigue podcast series on BBC Sounds. It’s really a very disturbing listen. The systemic sexual abuse of women in South Korea is absolutely abhorrent. And the fact that these outwardly looking ‘shiny, clean’ male K-pop stars behaved this criminally and disgustingly behind closed doors is beyond alarming. It’s truly frightening what lurks behind some country’s cultures – how we believe we see them and how they outwardly project themselves to be compared to how they truly are. How these kinds of behaviours can somehow be regarded as mere “cultural differences” is shocking.

If you can deal with the darkness of this podcast – for there are very stressing details on sexual assults and incidences of suicide discussed – then I recommend you listen to Burning Sun. You can find it on BBC Sounds – Link to the podcast HERE

I have another couple of weeks to wait before I get the result for my previous module and find out how well (or otherwise!) I did on my final assignment. Of course, I will let you know here (as much as I can) about it – bearing in mind that I will need to be careful just how much I can share about my mark and pass.

I’m also hoping to write here a little bit more often, in between writing work for the writing comps I’d like to enter.

For now, take care.