Looking back at our Summer Holiday, so long ago.

It wasn't so bad, not being in Greece, but... I'm tired and can't write anything else.
Continuing, some weeks later.... And then some more weeks later. For God's sake it's now January.

Basically, going on holiday with anyone else apart from immediate close family (and I have to rule out grandchildren here) never really works. You are always prey to other peoples stuff. And they to yours which kind of spins the tension backwards and forwards like an awkward old washing machine. Clare and Phillip, our friends, (and I use the term loosely as I have not seen Phillip since this trip) are civilised, upper middle class people who discuss everything from death to cups of Earl Grey with quiet self-deprecating English reserve. Frankly, as long as one doesn't shout FUCK OFF CUNT! in their faces it is no trouble at all getting on with them... And yet... One cannot completely relax. Whether on a pedalo, by the pool or choosing a bottle of Primitivo there are always boundaries. Are our children being infuriating at this moment? Does Phillip feel comfortable with the fact that I know he would rather die than go for a swim in the Hotel Pool? Has Clare realised that I think she is quite mad? Wouldn't they be hurt if we said what we really think, that the Hotel Cannero is basically just a super-expensive boarding house with food to match?

Well, yes would be the answer, especially to the last question, since this is the place of their dreams. The cradle of their romance with each other and all things Bella Italiano. As an interesting observation about how people see themselves abroad, Phillip considers himself fluent in Italian. Both me and Queenie were impressed with this until we discovered that this fluency extends to saying hello and being able to order a pizza and barely anything else. I've come across this in other people who have decided that they have a thing for a particular country - nearly always in Southern Europe. It's a sort of English wishful thinking; I may be emotionally constipated and stuck in a cold land, but part of me is Hot and Mediterranean! I rather envy that self-belief; I just feel inadequate and stupid when I'm on holiday and pathetically grateful when tradespeople/hoteliers/restaurateurs are not rude to me. After all, you don't get to meet anyone else do you?

Freddy their son is part of the relaxation problem. He's a very polite boy whom my son gets on very well with, in a slightly Upstairs Downstairs kind of way however he has this killer nut allergy. It's not one of these deals where people say 'I'm lactose intolerant' meaning that cheese makes them fart; it's actually if he has a single Brazil nut, he will die. Traces of pine nuts, cashew nuts, almonds, peanuts, monkey nuts, walnuts, pistachios and quite possibly coconuts, will send him into anaphalyxic (?) shock. He wears an belt containing a stash of syringes and adrenalin for people to plunge direct into his heart. On one occasion me and Queenie found him about to tuck into a choclate bar that whilst not actually being a Snickers bar, was some sort of close cousin.

As you'd imagine meal times could be a bit fraught. Philip and Clare would negotiate with waiters in pidgin Italian and broken English and waiters would answer, baffled, along the lines of 'This eez not a nut deesh... This eez Steak". And eventually the Willets would convince themselves that it probably was OK and Freddy would commence another meal into the unknown. They say the teenage years are the most dangerous time for allergy sufferers as this is when youngsters want to cut loose. They want to eat the same crap as their friends and getting laid is probably less likely when you are wearing some sort of junkie belt of syringes. Hopefully, Freddy will just grow out it. He grew out of an egg allergy previous to the nut allergy (Couldn't make it up, could you?)

EBAY NUTTERS

Gawd, Ebay! Psychoville. We sell quite a bit of our church stuff through it and largely that is OK - it is a way to advertise and reach bored housewives who want a pew for their kitchen. They don't usually have too much of an agenda. The trouble starts when I sell domestic stuff, i.e. anything that is 'collectable'. For instance, we had a whole bunch of early 60s toy trains and coaches; and once those Hornby Dublos and Triangs were listed all these questions started to come in. Is that a R221 in a R223 box? Is that a bogie with bricks or without? Can you send detailed photographs showing the speck of rust on the undercarriage? And after the sales finish you get these follow up emails where even if the customer is happy it seems like they are complaining: There is so much abstruse, intense detail about stuff no grown man should care about.

And 'Emoticons', those little flashing gizmos that adorn a certain type of email; I still can't get my head around those. And if people are actually complaining it is easiest simply to refund without arguing... Or so I thought.

I've got this nightmare weirdo out there who has bought a Victorian silver christening cup from me on ebay. The complaints and demands started before he even paid which I should have taken as a warning. Once he had the thing he insisted on a refund before returning the cup because he did 'not trust me'.

Paying this was a mistake. I had fallen into a classic pride trap - How dare he not trust me! I'll show him! Of course what happened next was that he announced that he was not returning the cup as I had falsely described it and was therefore trying to 'obtain money by deception'. In vain I pointed out that this was not such a great deception as he now had the money and cup. The next kicker was his email saying that in addition to keeping money and goods he was going to sue me through the small claims court for the repair of said object and then post bad feedback. (Sellers cannot post bad feedback on ebay anymore) Arrggh! The cost of this fantastic object - £28. (See pic; a bit of a bargain don't you think for a nice lump of Victorian silver?) The cost in terms of anger and stress - priceless. And to put it into context, I have £100,000 of borrowed money invested in US Dollars. A single cent change in the exchange rate means hundreds of pounds lost or gained for me. It doesn't bother me at all compared to this bloody cup.

There is something really wearing about coming up against criminals/lunatics/obsessives who want to mess you up. Maybe for money but mostly because they are fuck ups. Like old age, disease and accidents they are closer to you than you think.

POSTSCRIPT: I SAVED ALL OF HIS WACKO THREATENING EMAILS AND SENT THEM OFF AS A PACKAGE TO EBAY/PAYPAL/A CROSS SECTION OF SILVER DEALERS ON EBAY. LO AND BEHOLD HE SENT THE MONEY BACK TO ME. NATURALLY HE GAVE ME THE BAD FEEDBACK, ONE OF HIS COMPLAINTS BEING THAT I OFFERED HIM A REFUND...

Boredom and Separation

Maybe I'm depressed as well. There's nothing that I'm looking forward to - is that a bad sign? Well, that's not strictly true. I guess I'm looking forward to a time about 7 or 8 years from now when I can, hopefully, gracefully leave. I figure that the children will be old enough to deal with their parents being apart and hopefully won't have been too screwed up by their parents self-indulgent unhappiness.

You could look at it two ways.

1. You separate as a couple now and the kids drift into broken home weirdness just as they hit puberty. Unemotional, not-got-a-clue-about-feelings me on one side and really unhappy/frustrated mum but great-with-feelings on the other. Maybe we balance out our worst excesses by being together making some sort of stable home. So, it is good for the children for us to be together.
2. Once free of each other, me and Queenie blossom into the happy go lucky people that we used to be. We get great lives in different ways and the children benefit from seeing their parents as normal go getters. So, it is good for the children if we split.

My gut feeling is that the dutiful, miserable way is probably the best for the children. Kids like stability, they want a father and a mother around while they are growing up. Dads to do one sort of thing, mums do another. My parents were border line psychotic but I think it would have been worse if they hadn't been together while I was growing up.

I'VE POSTED A PICTURE OF A 1973 KAWASAKI KH 750 TO CHEER MYSELF UP. THIS WAS A DREAM MACHINE OF MINE WHEN I WAS MY SONS AGE. IT STILL LOOKS IMPOSSIBLY BEAUTIFUL TO ME. THEY WERE DANGEROUS AND UNPREDICTABLE BECAUSE THEY HAD VERY POWERFUL ENGINES IN FRAMES THAT WERENT MUCH STRONGER THAN ONE A BICYCLE WOULD HAVE. GUESS WHAT THEIR NICKNAME WAS:

THE WIDOWMAKER.

NOVEMBER 2008

Well, that was a bit of a gap. How time flies when one is watching TV, selling/buying religious stuff on Ebay or listening to my wife about how everything is awful. Yes, if before the cup was half empty, now it is pretty much empty. Everyone is healthy, the credit crunch hasn't affected us, the builders have left our improved home, I'm here 4 days a week, there is no shortage of money, the children are happy at school, no-one is dying apart from Bruce the new dad-in-law and he doesn't count because he has always been doing that.

And the some total of this OKness is... misery. Queenie is pissed off in possibly this order:

HAVING TO LIVE IN OUR TOWN. TWEE ISLINGTON EXPAT HANG OUT ON THE SOUTH COAST WITH HIGHEST PROPERTY VALUES OUTSIDE... ISLINGTON.

OUR RELATIONSHIP. MY NAZI COLDNESS AND HOW I HAVE DESTROYED HER CONFIDENCE AT REVERSE PARKING AND SEX.

HER SKIN. SHE HAS FANTASTIC SOFT TEENAGE SKIN - PART OF THE PRICE OF THIS ARE OCCASIONAL SPOTS.

HER BEST FRIEND MAZ IS AN UNRELIABLE COW WHO DOESN'T RETURN HER CALLS FOR DAYS/WEEKS AT A TIME. DESPITE LIVING NO MORE THAN 5 MINS WALK AWAY THEY HARDLY SEE EACH OTHER.

HER MUM IS AN UNEMOTIONAL WASTELAND - JUST LIKE ME! SPOOKY HEY?

I'm kind of reminded of Renton in Trainspotting when he does that 'Choose Life' spiel at the start of the film. With Queenie, it would be 'Choose Misery'. I said that to her the other day during one of our rows (Long drawn out apologies by myself punctuated by the ocasional outburst of truth as I see it). That didn't go down too well. That was another one of those moments where she stormed out in order to sacrifice herself to muggers on the Brighton seafront. I stopped her this time. It is a worry because she has this self-harming personality - nothing as crass as cutting herself with a school craft knife; more putting herself into dangerous situations where she can then say it was my fault if she does get assaulted, etc.

She is clinically depressed.

I don't know what to do.

She wont take uppers or sleepers. Wont consider seeing any shrinks or therapists or head quacks - only phsyio-type non-mental body helpers. She knows why she is unhappy (see above). What can she or me do? A job would be the simplest fix.... But. She doesn't want to do anything boring/demeaning/embarrassing. This of course rules out the very few jobs that she might get. Can't blame her for that; I certainly had that approach to employment all the way through the 1980s and did nothing much apart from sign on and piss about. The difference was, I was content to be a waster. If only she would write. Sadly, though she is the most articulate, best read person I have ever known, she does not feel able to do it. Some working class bollocks about how her parents brought her up to believe that her 'sort' just don't do things with words and paper.

Going on Holiday

We're about to go on our annual summer holiday. Normally we go to Krani in Greece (see above) which is this usually hot and basic Pellopenese mini resort for middle aged Brits, Dutch Lesbians and low ranking Russian gangsters. We've been going there for maybe 8 years in a row and it's sort of a family tradition. The steak and chips on the first night, the super locals only (nearly!) beach which you have to struggle to get to, the occasional cigarettes, fat juicy Kalamata olives and deep deep heat.

Well, this year we're not going there. Queenie is pissed off, the children are slightly confused about why it it isn't happening and I feel like a schmuck for pressing for a change. I feel like a schmuck anyway but now I'm also like the Grinch who stole the Summer Hols. We are going to Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy, basically because these friends of ours invited Johnny to be with their son at the Talented Mr Riplesque Hotel Cannero. Thought it would be a change. But what with summer being terminally crap here we really could have done with some Med UV. Instead, Freddie, the son of our friends has already told me 'How beautiful the lakes are when it pours with rain - Just like an Impressionist painting'. To hell with that. I want a tan to remind myself for a couple of weeks in September, at least, where all those thousands of pounds went. And how that our vacation wasn't just nagging and hanging around airports.

Emma Peel

It is 1am and I'm a bit bored, a bit tired and a bit restless. I think a lot of the time I drink simply because it's something to do. The Avengers has just been on BBC4 and what a super show that was. Daft as anything but Steed looks so good and Mrs Peel ditto. I have this recurring fantasy where I'm there in that little Lotus Elan sports car and it is 1967 with Diana Rigg or someone very like her. We are stationary on a country lane and there are leaves on the road, trees are stirring, the air is fresh but there is also that sense of autumnal decay. We are not talking, we are not hugging, having sex or anything but I feel absolutely alive and THERE. We are both young and filled with health and yet... Death and illness are just around the corner. Around the corner meaning the 1970's, the 1990's, I don't know, but it all seems like the blink of an eyelid anyway. I think it's something to do with the tenousness of life and how those moments were everything is good are gone before you even realise they were there. I like the idea of the 60's for the fact that women were more willing to please, had mini skirts and had lower expectations. Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel is a good pin up because she's got a good feasible figure, her skin looks pretty rough but not so much that it puts you off and she looks intelligent - but also not so much it puts you off. I suspect it's also a bit like those sad middle aged blokes who are into the bikes and cars of their childhood (see Kawasaki 750 above). If you concentrate on these ancient power objects then maybe the present doesn't hurt so much.

Making a Connection

Well, after last nights introspective musings/moanings, me and my wife actually did it. Neither the children were around and it wasn't in bed; both meaningful factors. I may not have been as good as Chelsea strip wearing David Mellor in his prime (one for my older readers there) but it... was... OK.

Thanks God. Life has some sort of meaning again other than trying to download obscure 60's garage tracks. There's also that optimistic buzz were you tell yourself that next time you'll fiddle about a bit more there, jiggle around more here and work on that Brazilian samba movement and it will all be fantastic in the Lovearium. Of course the reality will be demanding kids, work, creditors and the wiggling will have to wait till another snatched random moment. If death doesn't come first.

Talking of which, there's my new Father-in-Law. He is 86 years old and has been bedridden for maybe 2 years, sick and knackered for another 4 years before that.

My old Father in Law died at 77 and was active and lively up to the moment the final big heart attack got him. A bad reaction to bee sting a few weeks earlier was the catalyst. If not for that he might be around now.

Anyway, Bruce the new guy, the Stepfather-in-Law, is held in stasis by about half a dozen contrasting medical conditions. There's the strokes, the diabetes, the Bakers Cysts, the Alzheimers, the dodgy ticker... I could go on. All these things seem to react against each other in such a way that no one thing can kill him. Meanwhile, my Mother-in-Law, the carer, will almost certainly die before Bruce. Worn out by looking after him. We help, rarely and it will be on our conscience if this happens. Bruce takes over 50 separate medicines every single day, has various nurses, therapists and so on visiting (Try getting someone to come and visit if you have a sick child). He is supposed to do various light exercises to keep himself alive even longer.

Now, monged out though Bruce might be he is not falling for this. His quality of life is shit and while he is prepared to swallow dozens of meds he is not going to do various weedy little stretches to elongate the suffering.


God's plan here:

LIFE AS AN ENDURANCE TEST. POINTS LOST FOR COPPING OUT WITH AN O/D - OR NOT DOING PRESCRIBED EXERCISES?

SOMEONE ELSES LIFE AS A TEST IN COMPASSION FOR THOSE NEARBY.

OR A REALLY LONG DRAWN OUT BORING DEATH AS PUNISHMENT FOR SINS IN THIS LIFE OR EARLIER.

AND THEN AGAIN, MAYBE BRUCE IS ALIVE TO HELP FIND A CURE FOR x,y,z. THE LAST PILLS HE TAKES BEFORE HE DIES WILL HAVE A MIRACULOUS EFFECT ON SOMETHING OR ANOTHER AND THIS WILL BE THE POINT OF HIS WHOLE LIFE. OR MAYBE HE'LL ACCIDENTLY START A FIRE AND IN TRYING TO PUT THE BLAZE OUT AN EVIL PAEDOPHILE FIREMAN WILL LOSE HIS LIFE AND CHILDREN IN THIS TOWN WILL BE FREED FROM HIS REIGN OF TERROR.


Or then again, maybe nothing, just nothingness. A long pointless death to bookend a life which made little difference to anyone. I don't think that myself. And the thing with those scientist types who don't believe in mystery, God, life after death, weird stuff, none of them can explain what a conscience is very well. 'Culturally learned behaviour' or similar bollocks. And all of them are shit scared of dying; the ultimate contradiction to a scientific philosophy.

Sex after marriage

Is it a bad sign for a marriage when you get on better when you aren't having sex? Has to be doesn't it. It's sort of like: Now that you are considerate enough not to make me do that crap, I can actually like you for the person you are. There's quite a dance before you get there, however. In my limited experience no woman will actually say to a man (OK, well only rarely in the under 45s) that they don't like sex, never did, only ever pretended because it was expected, part of the contract. So you have to go through this rigmarole of how it is not the right time, the emotional stuff wasn't right, the souffle didn't rise on time (not a metaphor!), tiredness, kids in the wrong place, weren't feeling good about themselves, the relationship, whatever... Then on the few occasions it happens you discover that the problem is that you, the man, are crap at sex. In vain you point out that it has been over a week (in a year will I be writing, 'Over a Month'?) and that any friction down below is going to make it hard for you to hang onto your tonsils never mind anything else for a significant amount of time. Certainly not enough to stoke the boilers of that mutual pleasure machine... The resentment kicks in along with maybe some fear, your wife may well ask herself, Am I menopausal? Is this stuff all John's fault? I used to get off pretty easy 10 years ago. Is he totally useless or have I lost something?

This is hopeful speculation on my part. I'm pretty sure my wife does believe that I'm crap in bed. And if I don't make some reparation afterwards in the way of white goods, a damn good listening ear and general household chores then the shit will hit the fan and it will be even longer before I can have another (no doubt quicker) try out.

The good thing today was that this pick up from a church which was supposed to be only rubbishy panels included a marvellous BELL. See picture!

MARRIED ANGST

Why is it so hard for intelligent women to be happy when they're married?

Children: Sap energy. Provide a focus/audience for disagreements. Are always there. Are more important than your wife's needs. Stop women from having interesting careers - unless they are selfish of course.

Husbands: Are selfish. Stupid. Useless in bed; either wanting too much sex or too little. They can generally come easily which is normally wrong, unless they are supposed to get things over quickly, which is usually the time when they are trying drag things out like some long distance Barry White. A gentleman should not have an orgasm unless his wife does, even if it means a torsion, road rage or prostate cancer. If a wife cannot have an orgasm because of issues of trust started over 10 years ago then emotional closeness should be developed through acts of romantic kindness. I know, it is fucking impossible. Unless you are gay and then you wouldn't want to sleep with a woman anyway. And besides do gay men do that "I feel your hurt and I want to wallow in it also" stuff with each other? I always thought they just had sex like one has food in Yo Sushi. Probably lesbians are very considerate with their partners and what do they actually accomplish in the little time that is left? - Crap poetry and subsidised jobs in the social work sphere.

Friends: Never good enough. Either too boring or too unreliable.

Elderly relatives: Parents start to get sick and become a major hassle and time burner.

Young relatives: Older children have children of their own and lo and behold you have to start looking after them. Inez my youngest was an aunt at the age of 9. I'm a grandfather but I'd rather be an international hedonist without ties.

Health: Women in their 40's are a non-stop round of minor complaints. All of which are demoralising, expensive, non-NHS treatable, non-fatal and an excuse for not having fun/sex/quality alcohol.

Time: Never enough of it. Especially with an average phone call having to last 90 minutes.

Talking of which, it's time for me to go to bed: Alone!

The Start

11.35pm and Johnny my 13 year old son has just come down stairs in a spaced out, sleep walking fashion in order to use the loo downstairs. There's one closer to his bedroom but sometimes if it is really late he comes all the way to the ground floor - maybe to check if his parents are still alive. Maybe he just likes roaming around.

I look at Johnny and I feel both proud and sad. Sad because I've fallen into that mini-me ego trap of thinking he is like some sort of re-run of myself and he's about to make all the same fuck ups and mistakes that I did. And because he doesn't even have the same freedom that I did back in 1973. This is car dangerous, paedo 2008 and nice 13 year old boys just can't roam around and take chances on the streets. Well, I think I'd let him but to his mum such an idea is tantamount to offering him a crack pipe in the back of a 1 star safety rated car without a safety belt on.

It seems that some young teenagers are allowed out alone to have fun in Lewes, our home town, but they are apparently broken family, working class fuck up kids. When me and Johnny see them however, they simply look like kids who are having a bit of a laugh. Albeit in often a vaguely anti-social way: Riding those daft dwarf stunt bikes the wrong way down a one way street; shouting; chucking chips at each other. Fun stuff if you're 13. Fun stuff at any age if you're a bit pissed.

Soon Johnny will be 14, 16, 18, 21 and hopefully he'll be able to make some fun for himself without us being able to do anything about it. In a nice, caring middle-class way, of course. Perhaps shouting slogans about global warming in a Peruvian shepherds hat whilst getting drunk on fairly traded Chardonnay.