Walk

Would you credit it but one of the would-be suicide bombers, the one that tried to blow up the bus, only went to my old bloody school in Edgware! Wanker!…

Any-hoo another day, another post but there’s not a great deal to add.

The other day, bored shitless, I decided to go for another walk, this time to Stanstead Abbots along the tow path, then up over the ridge, along the country road and back down into town but half way home, the path runs out but a public footpath takes over, along a corn field…Oh, how wonderful I think and without a second thought, head down onto the “path”…

The thing is with a lot of these paths, I’m discovering, is that the fat-cat farmers have no interest in maintaining these public access paths, and so let them overgrow and virtually disappear and if it wasn’t for country folk like myself, hacking away at the paths then they’d remain in name only in many cases…So, anyway, I’m walking parallel along the road on this footpath, and it’s veering more and more into the corn field itself and before I knew it I’m, quite literally, outstanding in my own field. There’s things scurrying under my feet, the sun is blazing down, I’m cut from nettles and brambles on my feet that are exposed to the elements, thanks to my Jesus creepers and, looking at my mobile, I’m out of range for that all important agency call. Defeated, I work my way back, cursing the farmer, back onto the road, where I take on the traffic that’s roaring up behind and in front of me. When I got home, I’m knackered and a little shaken, so take to my bed for the rest of the day.

I like to read these kinds of experiences as a metaphor for life, I think we all do, and the other day I interpret as some kind of “overcoming adversity incident” I will prevail kinda thing…either that or “I’m lost, without a map, on my own and in an unfamiliar place”

So tired...so very tired now..

Fucksake!…what’s happened to Lorraine Kelly?…nothing to get up to now, just more GMTV than ever…sigh…Right…I am a winner…I am a winner…I am…ahfuggit, back to bed. Yesterday I did a marathon sleep-in, gotta be up there with one of my best efforts; I think I managed, over a 24 hour period like, 16 hours in bed…who says I can’t achieve anything I set out for?

Today, the elder smasher is off, as he is all week, to summer camp for a few hours, then a picnic in the park…gets him out of my hair for lately he’s asking awkward questions about my enthusiasm for job hunting, the little…smasher!

Bounce my little friend...bounce for me!

We got the smashers a blow-up trampoline, took bloody ages to blow up! The missus was very light headed at the end....amazing what you get on the rock n' roll these days! Cheers Nick, Dave and Nige!

Legoland in the rain

We took the smashers to Legoland yesterday, it pissed down but, but in true Brit fashion, we shrugged off the damp and had a wonderful time!

Dear me...

Hoorah! Finally…they’ve processed my unemployment application, or my job seekers application, or whatever. I can now complete my mortgage protection form and sort out my council tax, which should now be reduced. So, with £600+ NOT leaving my bank account each month and with £500+ coming into my account via benefits and tax credits and £400+ coming in from the missus working we should be ok for a bit…

I’m reading Peter Ustinov’s Biography now, I dunno what it is about biog’s at the moment but I’m comforted reading about peoples lives somehow; they way they start in poverty, struggle through adversary, end I’m winners and all that I suppose it puts my life into some sort of perspective, it’s all relative innit and we’re all dust in the end…

When

Signing on day today, wonderful, it gets me out of the house and meeting people! After I met the missus at the local park, where we played with the younger smasher on the swings and slides. I emailed an agency and ask them to forward my details for a government position, shit money and only a 3-month contract but fuck it, I’m going stir crazy now. I get an email back, oh sorry, the position is now at interview stage and you’ve missed your chance! And I’m like, oh right, why didn’t someone call me about this job earlier then?…jesus…

It’s been a quiet week generally; I had a call yesterday telling me I wasn’t going to progress with a job I’d interviewed for last week. I’m relieved in a way because the job was way over my head and I know I wasn’t right for it but at the same time it made me depressed because it was a knock back.

Right now I’m in the middle of sorting my mortgage protection out, without a signoff from the unemployment people I can’t get the form completed but they tell me, they have a massive backlog and it’s taking time to process me…round and round we go…makes you wonder if anyone has ever, actually received any mortgage protection money ever?

If...

What if…it’s been one of two questions bugging me for a few weeks now, understandably? What if I’d not left my old job, what if I’d knuckled down in the new one and not walked, what if, what if…but I know that if I’d not risked leaving I’d be asking myself the same question, what if…I’d resigned and tried out a new job, what if I had the guts…so, on saner days I comfort myself that whatever I’d’ve done I would have hated myself, small comfort eh?

So, here I am, ten years since I’ve been unemployed and I’m resorted back to what I instinctively do when faced with empty days stretching ahead of me, day in, day out…that’s right, you guessed it, I take out my right hand…put a pen in it and do me diary. Let’s see, Monday, woke up at 8am, wandered into the garden for breakie, read me book till lunch, then went for a pointless walk. Tuesday, woke up 8am, wandered into the garden…oh…never mind then. One good thing, I’m catching up with my reading, 4 books done to date, and catching up with my sleep of course and I’ve never been browner, the sun’s so intense, mind you, with the run of luck I’ve been having lately I’ll develop skin bloody cancer!...so staying inside now I am...

Today is Wednesday and I have no plans other than trying to finish my Spike Milligan Biography, which I’m really enjoying; I knew he was a manic-depressive but boy, the guy was borderline insane…what are we gonna do now?… what are we gonna do now?… what are we gonna do now?…

the other question I’ve been asking myself

Who turned me off?

(shudder)....Jeeez...that was a weird dream!...I dreamt that I was...no...no wait, you know how other peoples dreams are always dull?...think I'll save it, in time it'll be all forgotten....groan.