I Will Survive…

OK, I admit it, I have been a miserable bastard this last 9 months or so.  I apologise to all those(all two of you) who have had to read ma sad laments and moans.   From today I intend to get back to normal.  There may still be the odd bit of moaning though….  😉

Beset by a litany of problems, that, frankly, might have killed a lesser man, I have allowed maself to wallow far too long in a depressing stupor.  Falling out with my father, falling out with my brother, becoming homeless, the stress and hangover from Occupy Plymouth(which I have still to write about at some point), serious health problems in the family, being skint, getting bronchitis, an abscess in my mouth, and the falling apart of what I regarded as a serious long-term relationship, all contributed to the ‘perfect storm’ that afflicted me.  It has taken me til now to clear the mental fog all this has caused.  Problems still exist, my Mum is going in for a hysterectomy soon, and Dad in for an operation on his prostate, I’m still skint, and single, but things do not seem so irredeemably bleak as they did a short while ago.  I am not quite sure what has lifted my spirits, possibly the intervention of some good friends, but I feel better.  Maybe the two weeks I had off work, which I thought I had wasted, have actually done me some good after all?

Anyway, thank you to all those who have put up with me, tried to lift my spirits, or attempted to distract me from my own personal annus horribilis.   You will be pleased to know your efforts have not been in vain.  All I need noo is ma leg over and I’m sorted…    😉

Life Blues – A Perspective.

It was my intention last night to write a drunken ranting blog post about the vagaries of my day, and about how nothing seems to be going right.  I was going to be cursing my luck, cursing the gods, cursing fate, and just cursing in general.  But something happened on the way home from the pub last night that made me think again.  I stopped and chatted to a homeless chap and remembered all my problems are not actually that bad when put into some perspective.

I was a wee bit drunk as I staggered home last night.  It had been a long day, or a “cunting shitfuck motherfucker of a day” as I had posted on Facebook earlier in the evening.  The primary problem was the car breaking down, and this was compounded by the fact it happened on the road between Totnes and Dartmouth, which is almost the middle of nowhere.  And of course I don’t have breakdown cover…

I was supposed to be in Dartmouth to do a job for a guy, and I had to phone him and ask if he would come and pick me up, and possibly help tow the car back to Plymouth.  He agreed to do that once I’d sorted his boiler.  By the time we got back to the car it was maybe 6 hours later, and the hazard lights, on all that time, had drained the battery.  This meant it would be difficult to break and steer while being towed.  Still, that didn’t turn out to be a problem as the steel tow cable snapped after about 100 yards!  I came back to Plymouth car-less last night, leaving my poor wee motor to be recovered today.  At the cost of £70.  God knows what it’s going to cost to fix the car.  Or even if it can be fixed.  One mate tentatively suggested it might be the cambelt, and it might be a scrappage job!  Eek!

I was already going to be on a very tight budget this month, so as you can imagine I was a little upset by these developments.  Hence my desire for a rare beer, and my intention to rant about it last night.

I bumped into ‘James’ outside the Spar on North Hill in Plymouth.  He was sitting huddled against a wall, looking cold, miserable, and hungry.  Before I went into the shop, I fished out the shrapnel from my pocket, and told him to get himself something to eat.  In a further act of drunken compassion, while in the shop I decided to buy him a hot sausage roll.  As I handed it to him outside the shop, he said “no thanks, I’m a vegetarian”.  Which just seemed to sum up how my day was going.  So I went back into the Spar and got him a cheese and tomato sandwich.

I sat with him for 10 minutes as he ate, hungrily.  James was from Plymouth, and he had been on the streets for at least ten years, since both his parents had died.  He indicated that he had been through some unpleasant experiences, and that possibly accounted for for what seemed to me his rather nervous and skittish appearance.  Or maybe he just wasn’t used to loud and slightly intoxicated Scotsmen being nice to him.  Who knows?

Anyway, I came away from this encounter cursing my luck a little less than I had been.   My luck is not as bad as James’.  Or of countless people like him.

Lonesome No More!

Everyone should have a new middle name.  And everyone should read Lonesome No More.

Get your own new middle name here

My new name under Kurt Vonnegut’s Lonesome No More! scheme is:-

John Hollyhock-17 Robb

Hullo there fellow Hollyhocks and Seventeens.  Now “Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.  Go take a flying fuck at the moooooon.”