Tag: thoughts

Posted on

Apologies

I was not myself yesterday, as my late night post revealed. I’m normally an eternal optimist. If not optimist, an optimistic realist anyway. I try not to let the “shittier” aspects of life get me down, but sometimes…

It’s not anything at all involving Em, and we are tight as. Sometimes you just need another person to talk to though. I was really needing that yesterday. Just feeling a little lonely, but not in the “I’m in the world all alone” kind of way. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain without it sounding embarrassing. 

So anyway, bygones and all that. I hate being down. I went through a really long spell of it in 2006 and I don’t want to end up back there. There are many things in my life that I can actually be thankful for. The last thing I should be doing is indulging in self-pity.

And anyway, I have a special visitor here now (Kitty, the neighbours cat), so that’s helping me cheer up even more

🙂

Posted on

How Did They Get Away With It??

I’ve been sitting on this picture for a few weeks, wanting to post it, but things have conspired against me lately. So here it is. 

This advert was in our local paper a few weeks ago. Is it just me (and Em), or is this just a LITTLE suggestive??

Media_http1bpblogspot_odces

Posted on

Gone Is The Internet Age of The Pen-Pal.

I had someone contact me out of the blue recently (see comments on previous post) and thought it quite amazing. Especially since I don’t appear to get much traffic on my blog (not that I’m looking, it can be great to know you are almost totally anonymous with this thing, but feel there is SOMEONE listening). It made me reminisce for the lost art of the Internet pen-pal. 

In the heady, early days of the Internet (invented many moons ago, but saw me on in 1997), there was no Facebook or My(gay)space. The people you met on the Internet tended to be people you didn’t know. I was the only person in my family to be on the Internet for about 2-3 years. And I was still living in Oz at the time, so there was no need to “keep up-to-date” with my family online. The people I met in these early days were all strangers, including Em. Back then, you seem to go on the Internet to meet new people. Have a new way of making pen-pals that didn’t involve putting a little spiel in a magazine and hope that 2 months later you’d get some response. People put their email addresses on pen-pal sites and met that way.

Nowadays, it seems you need to know all the people on the Internet first. Like with social networking. OK, you can poke someone randomly, and they may add you to their friend list, but it never steps beyond that. The only real interaction you have with people on Facebook or Gayspace (in my experience) is with people you ALREADY know. Friends and relatives. That’s great if you live vast distances from them (great for me, I live in the UK, my family are in Australia), but it wasn’t the initial intent I had for my use of the Internet nearly 11 years ago now. Of course I want to keep in touch with my family. That’s not what I’m implying. I just wish I could continue to meet new people as well.

I wanted it to meet NEW people. To get to know people from all round the world. I met one fantastic person as a result (Em) and we are still together all these years on. I made some other pen-pals as well, but you just end up losing contact with these people. I always feel my life is not anything particularly special, so I find it hard to keep pen-pals. I never know what to write and think people will get bored with me, so after a while I just never bother to reply. Or I just lose track of people. I’ve had a pen-pal for about 10 years now. He lives in another part of the UK. He emailed me around Xmas time. I said in an email that I’d respond to his email to me in more detail once Xmas was dealt with. Well, it’s now May, and I never did send that “more informative” email.

But I digress. The short end of the story is, I got my hopes up with this person. I was dubious at first that the post was just a ploy to promote their own blog, but considering the amount of traffic I get for my blog, that seemed HIGHLY unlikely. This person seemed really nice and genuine, and so I replied in the hope that we’d establish a rapport, get to know each other, and become pen-pals (or e-pals). I was SSSOOO looking forward to establishing a friendship. But lo and behold, nothing happened. Perhaps my email went to her spam box? Perhaps she’s even more like me than I imagined, and just can’t be arsed to reply? Perhaps I am INDEED so boring that she gave up after 1 email? I mean, if I can’t even get my partner to tear herself away from a computer screen to spend some time with me, what hope do I have?

So, perhaps I’ll just continue to use my blog, like I did my diaries when I was a teenager. An invisible friend. Someone (something) to air my feelings to. I just wish I had that return banter sometimes…

🙁
Posted on

Making Space In A One-Bedroom Cluster Home.

We have lived in our current rental property for nearly 5 years now. Every day is a battle to keep this place clean, as it is SSOO small. We only ever eat meals at a dining table when we go out to eat (very rare these days), or when we visit Em’s parents together, or when I get out to Oz to see my family. We just don’t have the room for any sort of dining table, which I hate. I hate eating, sitting in front of the TV. 

There IS storage space in the house, but it’s modest, and it’s taken us a long time to downsize our stuff that used to fit quite nicely into a two-bedroom house, to a one-bedroom place. And Em is the BIGGEST hoarder ever!!! I came over just with clothes – so I haven’t really hoarded anything. All my other stuff is still at mums. 

Anyway, with a walk-in robe that couldn’t house anything beyond clothes, an under-stair storage space that has been full of stuff virtually since we moved in, a shed that is 3 quarters full (it can never be fully filled due to the gas and electricity meters being in there!) and a kitchen with the most diabolical cupboard space you’ve ever seen, something HAD to be done with our unsightly mess!!

A few weeks into the New Year we decided to utilise the whole wardrobe for storage of everything minus clothes, and bought 2 free-standing canvas covered wardrobes for our clothes. That freed up a LOT of space. 

The next thing we needed was some kind of storage space for the kitchen. I thought if we could get some kind of free-standing cupboard to put in the kitchen we could use it as a larder/pantry for our foodstuff and store all our kitchen cookware away in the daft cupboard space in the kitchen. We had no way of storing our cookware away properly, so there were always sauce pans and frying pans sitting on the stove top and we used to have to put all our cooking trays and the like into the oven to keep them hidden away. There was no room for a toaster, and other things like our liquidiser and multi-cooker had to be on full display as there was just NOWHERE to put them. 

Anyway, cutting it short, nearly 2 weeks back we got ourselves a cupboard for the kitchen. A self-assembly job, which was scaring the pants off us. But we actually managed to put it together!!

Media_http3bpblogspot_qfccn

It was meant to have a draw at the top. And we did assemble the draw. But because the unit isn’t fully flush together and is a bit “gappy” (IE: not cleanly connected), the draw doesn’t slide flush on the anchors inside, so we’ve ditched the use of the draw and are just using the space to store the condiments and stuff. It stores all of our non-chill/frozen foodstuff and it cleared all the existing kitchen cupboard space we were using for the food so we can now store away all our cookware! The best £29.00 we’ve ever spent (apart from the £22.00 we spent getting our dishwasher). 

The kitchen is finally clean and tidy. Yay!!!
Posted on

Today I’m Fine

Today I’m Fine.

Not much to report today only that I’ve survived another day on Earth. Kitty had her daily ham visit, Chris had her daily drag and Em and I had our regular action-packed day! Rain was promised but never came. . .there’s always tomorrow. We’re thinking of investing in a single divan bed for Em to sleep on in the bedroom as she currently sleeps on the lounge downstairs. We’ll see what happens there. Ciao

Posted on

The Winter Spring Clean.

Myself and the co-inhabitant of the two-storey rabbit hutch we reside in decided it was time for a much needed spring clean of the bedroom (yes, only one – it’s all the hutch has). As we don’t have wheels of our own, we hired a car to help with the “dirty deed”. The plan was to buy wardrobe space and use the ‘robe space provided (the bedroom has a built-in ‘robe) as actual storage space for “junk” (IE: stuff we want to keep that’s not used daily or frequently).

We bought two canvas covered ‘robes for our clothes to go into and cleared away the pile of stuff that had accumulated in the corner of the bedroom. The ‘robes were culled of excess clothes, which saw 3 wheelie bin sacks of clothes taken away for charity. On top of that, there was probably another 3 wheelie bin sacks of actual rubbish taken to the tip.

It was two days of toil, but worth it, as the result is very pleasing to the eye.

Yesterday was “us” time. A day in which the car was used for leisure. We went to Milton Keynes early in the afternoon. First to a garden centre over there. It was busy for the end of January. Only about 4 spots left in a 80 bay car park. We looked for a new seed feeder for the goldfinches that come and visit the garden (no real luck there) and in the craft section, I found a peacock feather for Chrissy. There’s a little fruit and veg shop there too, so I got a few things from there. A lovely little slice of shortbread biscuit with a caramelised top (yum), a stick of soft liquorice (yes, it IS a fruit and veg shop, honest), some Jerusalem artichoke, broccoli and courgette (see, I told you it was a fruit and veg shop).

From there we went on to a shopping district of MK that has a Morrison’s supermarket and a few other shops. There’s one there called “…in Store” where we found some white onions to grow. Then we went into the pet shop there and got a replacement seed feeder for the goldfinches. After that, on to Morrison’s, my favourite UK supermarket. We don’t have one locally (Well not REALLY local anyway, our nearest is about 12 miles away. Easy to get to with wheels, but not public transport), so while we had wheels, we had to go to one. I love Morrison’s. For the Aussie’s reading the blog, it’s more Coles rather than Franklins. It’s just a nicer shopping experience here, and they have the BEST own brand products, including a top of the range brand called (appropriately), The Best.

We buy their own brand tea bags. The best tea, by far. Better than the brand names. You can keep ya Lipton’s and Tetley’s, PG Tips, and Typhoo, for me it’s Morrison’s Red Label ALL THE WAY! Their UHT milk is the nicest and creamiest too. We can stock up on the tea bags, but not so much on the milk. It’s the nature of UHT milk, I know, but finances hinder the stock pile of that…plus the lack of space to keep it all in.

I really do miss my regular Morrison’s shops. That’s the only thing I miss having a car for, it really is. Sad, eh?

Posted on

Globesity – The New “Buzzword”.

Where have we got this sudden desire to merge words to make a new one from? All this Brangelina/Bennifer stuff is just weird.
Anyway, I digress.

This word, reportedly first used by a writer at the World Health Organization, in an article about the “global obesity epidemic”, is increasingly being used to describe the state of the 1st world’s health.

The figures ARE worrying. Despite the fact that I’m some 130-odd kilograms in weight myself, and therefore a “globesity” statistic, I do suffer the mentality of “well, I don’t want to live until I’m 110, so I’ll eat what I damn well like, thank you very much!”. But I really would like to be healthier in the here and now. I might not want to prolong my life, but I’d like for it to be a better quality of life at the moment.

I am old enough to remember (sadly) a time when food was still not as readily available as it is now. Supermarkets when I was growing up seem to only really have the basic things. Fruit and vegetables (nothing exotic mind…and only things “in season”…which is not something you have to worry about anymore – big “up” to food miles!), bread (white and brown, that was it – pretty much anyway), butter and marg (although margarine was pretty low quality then), milk (in cartons or bottles), some sweets/lollies…not at the stock levels we have these days though, nowhere NEAR those levels. And I’m pretty sure that, until the early to mid 1980’s the supermarkets in Oz didn’t sell meat. You still went to the butcher for your meat. My mum refused to by meat from the supermarket until into the 1990’s and then she would only buy small amounts. Now, if she wanted to, she probably couldn’t find a butcher to buy from!

It was an absolute TREAT for us (me, my siblings, kids around my street and local area) to get any kind of sweets. You felt really special if you were allowed to buy something off the ice cream man (who would come around at least once a day, most likely twice, three times on weekends, and during the Xmas summer holidays, they might as well have parked in the street they seemed to come around so often!!). A BIG treat was an ice cream, perhaps a paddle pop (they only use to cost 20 cents!), or a bubble-o-bill (about 30-40 cents). The biggy was a gaytime – that was the creme de la creme of ice cream treats. I think they were a whopping FIFTY CENTS when I was in single figures, but 50 cents was a big deal! But we’d be more than happy with a 5c or 10c bag of lollies (sweets). You didn’t expect these things every day. Half the time you’d be too afraid to ask, cos you know your mum would go MENTAL if you even asked. Pester power was NOT going to work on our war/post war baby mothers!

Now it’s so readily available and affordable that we’ve had a generation of kids that have been given chocolates and sweets as pacifiers. Cry = get a bar of chocolate.

Food was much simpler as well. Post-war, what could you buy? Milk, sugar (in limited quantities), eggs (again – limited…no eggs at all during the war), butter, limited meat, fruit (only seasonal, and limited), vegetables (seasonal), tea. If you wanted bread, you made it. It was like that for a long time.

Even while I was growing up, we had lots of casseroles and soups and stews. My mum was always making Irish stew and home-made friend rice. To have a Chinese take-away was an extra special treat. Half the time you had to go to the restaurant, there was no “take-away” as such. Not being delivered to your door anyway. I think I was around 12. We (my family) went to a Japanese restaurant in Sydney for my mum’s 45th birthday. I remember trying sashimi, only a taste. It wasn’t something I ordered…no way. Raw fish – are you kidding?!!! I’d not even had a take-away curry until I moved here to the UK.

Most nights as I got older, into my teens, we’d still have just a meal of meat and 3 veg. On a really lazy day you might have take-away fish and chips, or a burger and chips. But even then, the burgers weren’t McDonalds slop. It was a burger from the local milk bar, made with a fresh meat pattie, fresh bun, filled with lettuce, tomato, onion (I didn’t have onion then), beetroot (yes! beetroot on a burger – it is delicious), maybe cheese. If we made them at home, we’d even have an egg on there. One hamburger was a complete rounded meal…not a bun of artery hardening slop. You wouldn’t know it to hear of my size…but I rarely have take-away/fast food. My downfall is sweets – chocolate, lollies, cakes and crisps.

I think food is now too readily available. It’s too easy to get, with supermarkets open 24/7. I think supermarkets contain far too much stock these days, and are far too over-sized (I think the increasing size of the supermarkets are in line with the size of the obesity problem). I don’t have a problem so much with the opening hours, more the size of these supermarkets. I’m sure walking the length of one of these “super” supermarkets is the only exercise some people get – me included!!

And we have the genetic problem in us. We (as humans) veritably starved for thousands of years and our bodies are designed to crave fat and sugar. And now with the over-processing of food, all we’ve put in to processed food is fat, sugar and salt.

I think we need to design a pill that rectifies what is now a genetic flaw or defect (IE: the bodies fixation in obtaining fat/sugar). A pill to tell the body that fat/sugar is no longer wanted or required. Not at the rate it needed anyway. We’ve gone from our bodies not getting this stuff, only in very limited quantities in fits and starts, to having a balanced, stable intake of it, to – LOOK OUT, HERE IT COMES, in the last few hundred years. The last phase – from balanced to LOOK OUT – in the last 50 years!! It’s pretty bad.

Posted on

Supermarket Alcoholics.

Media_http2bpblogspot_tsesg

I was disgusted to hear recently that three of the big supermarket chains in the UK, Tesco, ASDA, and Sainsbury’s are selling cans of lager for just 22 pence each. They are sold in packs of 4 for 88p or (in ASDA for example) in packs of 12 for £2.64.

Are these supermarkets only just catering to alcoholics? Who in their right mind would CHOOSE to buy a supermarkets own “no frills” lager? No connoisseur of beer, that’s for sure. This would mean you could buy a 24 can carton (beer in Australia is usually sold in 24 can/bottle cartons) of beer for the equivalent of $12.50. That is truly disgusting. Or…fantastic, depending on your outlook. The alcohol volume of the lager is “light” at 2%. But I’m sure if you drink enough, you’ll get drunk!

To me it’s nothing short of irresponsible. Britain is in the midst of a binge-drinking epidemic. Surely the last thing we need in where the culture has become not about the enjoyment of drinking and drinking to be social, responsibly – to turning into drinkers who just want to get pissed…surely that last thing required is 22p lager? Isn’t the degree of availability of “alcopops” enough without 22p cans of lager? It doesn’t cater for people who enjoy their drinking. It’s catering to drunks, teenage drinkers and homeless tramps. How can the supermarkets live with themselves catering to a market like that?

Granted, when they see the government give licences for pubs and clubs to stay open 24 hours a day, why continue to have a conscience? Twenty four hour licensing should NOT have been granted. And now it has been (and been in place for nearly 3 years now), why are the landlords and bar owners not being held more responsible for people leaving their premises far more intoxicated than they should be?

I’m not against people enjoying themselves, I’m not even against pubs and clubs being open 24 hours, but what I AM against is people having access to alcohol 24 hours a day. I suppose if people want to drink, they’ll drink no matter what. But irresponsible landlords still serving highly intoxicated people and supermarkets selling 22p lager isn’t helping the situation.

And we wonder why 25 year old men and women are rocking up to hospitals with cirrhosis of the liver! Come on government! Wake up!! Stop the sale of these super-cheap lagers and please make landlords and bar owners more responsible for serving alcohol to highly intoxicated patrons.

Posted on

Bankruptcy, Hospitals and Christmas.

Where do I start? For starters, Em goes to hospital on Tuesday for surgery. She’ll be there for about 5 days and will need 4-6 weeks recuperation time.

Next. Money woes. We are BEYOND broke. But these days, who isn’t? We’ve seen Citizen’s Advice and they will be helping us negotiate with creditors. We need to change bank accounts and may eventually have someone else operating an account on our behalf. In the New Year we’ll no doubt be officially bankrupt, but bizarrely it’ll probably mean we’ll cope better than we have done in recent years.

The down side is that this year will be an extra lean Xmas. I mean we’ve not been extravagant by any means in recent years. We would just indulge a little on having nicer food (IE: buying from M&S rather than ASDA). But it’s going to be really tight this year so not even nicer food will happen. Keeping a roof over our heads is just a TAD more important!

Despite all this, I feel upbeat. We’re doing stuff to sort out our debt. Em’s surgery will hopefully result in her improved well being. And Xmas is all about being thankful for your lot and (not forgetting) celebrating Christ’s birth.

I know there are people out there still FAR worse off than us. How can I be anything but upbeat about our future?