Stejeb's Blog

Working nights, I get to listen to some very good music, first on Keith Warmington’s show from 7 until 10pm, then Trevor Fry from 10pm until 1am, and Alex (The Dark Lord) Lester from 2pm until 5pm. Between them they turn out a wonderfully eclectic mix of music from the 1950’s to now.

As I’m one of those people who can map their life by music, some of the tunes on offer bring back memories, some good, some bad. In the past I’ve had a tendency to gloss over and ignore some of the bad ones, but as I get older, and look back at my life, and relate then to now…I find it hard to ignore the feelings and memories some of the tunes invoke. Now, I want to explore those memories, put all of it together in my mind ready to put it all down and get rid of it.

The particular tune the other night was The Rolling Stones, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. Whenever I hear that one, it brings back a flood of memories, first strangely enough is the smell of freshly cooked fish and chips, and warm salt and vinegar. As a child (11 years old) my mother worked in a place called the Beacon Cafe in Bulford Camp on Salisbury Plain, an army camp and town, grown to a fantasticly large place now. The cafe was owned by a woman called Brenda, she lived there with her teenage son, an overweight bully called Andrew. Brenda had a thyroid condition and had bulging eyes, bad teeth and peroxide blonde hair. The cafe had a jukebox, and it was almost always blasting out something.  My father at the time was working in a garage in Amesbury, serving petrol and in the shop. My sister was nearly 16, my younger brother nearly 8. We lived on a caravan site…Beacon View in Porton Road about 2 miles out of Amesbury…it was our first settling point after my father came out of the army after 22 years service.

Shortly before I was due to go school one morning, the police arrived looking for my father, they wouldn’t tell us why, but he was missing for the next 4 days. When he returned, the police came and picked him up, he had robbed the garage safe where he worked, and gone off to Ireland to see my grandparents, he claimed to have no memory of what had happened, or where he’d been…I found out years later talking to my grandmother. He got sentenced to 6 months in prison. It wasn’t the first time…..nor would it be the last!

So, there we were, Chrismas looming large, no father, no money, and a mother who still had a life to lead…and lead it she did. We started having visits from “Uncle David” a member of the RURs (Royal Ulster Rifles) who were stationed in Bulford at the time….we lived in a caravan…we could hear…and feel what was going on.  My mother at that time was herself suffering from an overactive thyroid, added to that she had always been psychotic, prone to violent outbursts, and drank wayyyy too much. She decided one night that a local woman, Mrs Bryant, should have her tongue cut out for spreading rumours about my sister….if it hadn’t have been for Paul Privett being there that evening…I don’t know what would have happened. Paul ended up with a gashed thumb from the scissors my mother was weilding, I ended up with a black eye.

We had our usual array of “presents” from social services for Christmas that year, my father did his time in Winchester prison, and returned to carry on from where he left off, “Uncle David” was never heard of again, and life went on….

At some point in my life I vowed my children would never know a life like that, and I’ve stuck to it. Every time I hear tunes like that, it reinforces my determination to do the right thing. It reinforces my belief that people don’t HAVE to be a product of their upbringing, we all have the ability to change the future handed to us, no child needs a life like that.

I went to my eldest daughter’s place this weekend. To do their plastering…. I bonded, I fitted angle beads, I plastered, I worked my butt off! Next weekend I’ll go there again, and I’ll finish it off and sort out the leak on the bath and fit it properly…and I’ll work my butt off again….and for the second weekend on the trot….I’ll get to sit and talk to my lovely daughter, and we”ll drink wine and try and make sense of the past and the 28 year seperation her mother forced on us, and I’ll talk with her hubby about football and how their business is going, and spend time with my two fantastic grandsons.

My normal weekend tends to be spending time talking with my wife about almost everything, playing Trivial Pursuit…or Scrabble with the children…or sitting reading and listening to music, sometimes it’s just gathering as a family in the hub of the house -the dining room- where we tend to congregate and chat and exchange views about what’s going on  in our lives and the great wide world and how we feel about it all…..

Compare my weekend to that of people worldwide, living in hardship and starving….or even the people of this western world who go through life never appreciating what they have or the good life they enjoy……..

I’ll work my butt off any day to spend time with the people I love….but of course I don’t have to do that….they’re there, at home I have my wife and two grown up children, and I can now go and see my grown up, and very capable eldest daughter, with her hubby and children whenever I want…..a big daughter shaped hole in my life has been filled, no thanks can repay her spiteful and egocentric mother for putting us back in contact with each other now, whatever her motives, I just wish it had happened  a very long time ago, we both missed out on a lot of life, but we’re making up for it….

Yes…this was the kind of weekend I can enjoy, and may there be many more like this!

I think this very often…why are things designed by people who obviously don’t use them and most definitely will never have to clean them?

I had to unblock the bathroom sink, just a simple matter of unscrewing the trap, clean it out and put it back on in theory….. Actually, because of the way the pedestal was designed you have to take that out of the way first. The sink has a recess underneath which fits on to the pedestal, the pedestal is sealed to the wall, and the sink…oh, and the shelf along the bottom of the wall that hides the pipes. The sink is also screwed to the damn wall and fastened to the plumbing….

So, what should have been a five minute job turned into a marathon rip-out and re-fit, and I still have to go out tomorrow and get some sealant to go round all the joins on the floor again…design fail!

The other job I had to do in the bathroom (preparing for imminent MIL visit!) was retighten the loo seat. This is the type made with two cute little hinges, one each side, which – no matter HOW hard you tighten them – constantly untighten themselves and swivel every which way, allowing the damn seat to dump you on the floor….design fail!

The kitchen is the other area that really drives me nuts. Appliances that are impossible to clean without dismantling them down to their component parts first, gas hobs with dangerously curved bits that mean balancing pots and pans extremely carefully unless you want the lot on the floor, and dainty little insert sinks that make washing meatdishes and big pots a juggling act…design fail!

If they just tried using the stupid things they design before they mass-produce them, and took a look at the crap their competitors are making, we might just start getting user friendly things in shops.

I’m fascinated by genealogy…family research. It’s immensely satisfying to spend all the time required to dig out and find the information you need to go back further, especially when you manage to over-come obstacles like people being given (and using) different names to that they were given at birth. It’s very easy to trace the name changes associated with a woman marrying and taking her husbands, or even hyphenating their maiden name with that of her husband.

So, I had a great deal of trouble with my maternal grandfather, everyone knew him as Henry…in fact “Henry” was his older brother who died in infancy and had been named for his father, when he died, the name was just “passed” to the second eldest, my grandfather, who had been named and christened “Earnest”. Now that’s fine, but no one ever made that change official, or recorded it. The fact was only discovered on his death by reference to national insurance numbers and medical records, or my search backwards would have died right there, so thank heavens for my step-gran giving me some help. I should also say here that he lied about his age when he remarried, he knocked 10 years off his real age of 45 because he was getting wed to my mother’s then best friend, aged 18 at the time!

To date, going backwards with the research into my family, I haven’t found any evidence at all of any kind of “normal family” background….no wonder I had so many problems when I was growing up! The strange thing is, so many people feel that way…..which begs the question…What exactly does constitute a “normal” family?

When you look at today’s society, the early breakdown of marriages, single mums, single dads…families where “dad” can be a different person to each child..are they any further, or closer, to the “normal” families of my childhood? In those days, they stuck at it, through abuse and violence, bullying and financial difficulties caused by booze, gambling and selfishness, and there was a great tendency for people to grow up damaged and enter into relationships similar to those of their parents, and I have to be honest…..I ain’t seen the kind of changes I thought would happen as people became better educated and communication improved.

I don’t agree with any woman putting up with violent abusive partners, I don’t think that any man has the right they confer upon themselves to “own” a woman in their own minds, I don’t think people give enough time and thought to getting married in the first place…I didn’t the first time round, my only regret from that is that I didn’t wait for her to grow up, and me to mature. There was never any abuse or violence though, I can still honestly say that, apart from trying to defend myself, I’ve never raised my hand to a woman.  Anyway, she changed my son’s surname (with my consent) to that of her next husband, then the daughter from that marriage was given the name of the following husband….

And this is where things get very difficult for people trying to do the family tree, it’s relatively easy for me, but how will the child two or three generations down the line cope with studying the family when there have been surname changes imposed on their relatives of the past, it’ll be okay as long as they’re starting off with a good collection of family birth and marriage certificates, otherwise they are really going to struggle to find out anything about their heritage…..good luck to them, I hope they have plenty of money available to keep following trails until they find the right one.

I thought about this, this evening, most (not all!) people have one, mine is rather odd…as far as my wife is concerned! I often read out, or show her things I’m reading off the web, sometimes she finds them as amusing as me, other times, it’s like we live on different planets. Same applies for TV sitcoms, books and cartoons. She finds Scrubs hilarious, I find it rather silly and repetitive, I like blogs, she thinks the people that write them are as odd as me..but we both agree on Terry Pratchett and Bill Bryson books!

I’ve had my sense of humour stretched to the limit this year, I can laugh off most of the things I have had to endure, like flexible cystoscopy….and believe me…if you can laugh THAT one off…you have a sense of humour!…but where mine fails is when the husband of my ex-wife…(from three odd decades ago) gets up-tight enough to send me a facebook message (from my ex-wife’s account) to ask me to “back off” after I had the temerity to say hello to her face to face for the first time since….about 1982! actually, I was with my younger daughter at a do in their village, and ex-wife was blocking the entrance to the beer tent..no time to think, should I have gone without the beer, and daughter without a cold drink? Just walk past like I’d never seen her before? or, as I did, stop and say hello, get a quick hug, let her chat to my daughter briefly and carry on?

So I got the message from him, now, how do you respond to such a ridiculous request…bearing in mind that I’d suffered plenty of abuse and insults from her in the past to always try and give her a wide berth and avoid confrontations? I decided to just ignore it, and not reply…I can, admittedly, on occasion…get a tad sarcastic, so sometimes it’s better to just shut.the.fuck.up. so I did, but I’m still seething about it really, and still trying to find the funny side!

I’m sure there’s one there somewhere!

On the subject of flexible cystoscopy, I had to have one several years ago, and that was DAMN uncomfortable, so having a consultant sit there and try and tell you now it won’t be “all that bad” is poor form. My GP convinced me that I “must” have it done and sent a letter of referral, and then the fun started….I made the appointment..they changed it..they changed it again, then I went along, and afterwards they made another two appointments, and changed them again..this time for the ultra sound and xray, went along for them to Bristol, got drenched in gel of some icky persuasion, that ended up soaked into my tee shirt, pants and pubes, along with a commentary of what was going on by a French(?) consultant with little English, although I did come away with the impression that the hulking giant of a consultant who will perform the next phase of terrify Steve will answer my questions (like WTF? and why me lord?), that’s assuming the appointment stands of course 🙂

And meanwhile…all my illusions about fairies have been shattered by two of the best bloggers I’ve encountered for a while on Twitter. Handflapper and Jillsmo Read them, they’re good 🙂

If you’re anything like me, in this age of economic misery, terrorism and feeling like technology is rather taking the mickey out of you some days, you might struggle to find something worth a smile.

Thankfully, I don’t have that problem anymore. Some time ago one of my friends sent me an email with an attachment, a letter to the makers of a well known brand of sanitary pads. Once I’d managed to stop laughing, I did a google search and found out who wrote it, and linked to the site…if you’ve never read that gem, you’ll find it here…The Always Letter..by Wendi Aarons, and she’s been making me smile and laugh ever since.

Having been the type of dad who spent as much time as I could with my children as they were growing up, I can relate to some of the hilarious and sometimes touching blogs written by a lot of very funny, and very talented , bloggers that I’ve discovered since first finding Wendi’s blog. People like Mama Kat ,  The Bitchin Wives Club,  Mommy Is In Timeout , The Bloggess  and one of the very best Desperate Housemommy. If you ever have a problem you want help with, look no further than the Mouthy Housewives or if you use facebook, you can follow it here, you’ll also find most of the others on facebook, and you’ll find links to many more on their pages.

So between facebook, twitter and email notifications, I’ve always got something to read that will make me smile. Writing a blog is one thing, producing the witty and often informative blogs these talented writers do displays a remarkable talent. Finding Wendi Aarons’ blog has taken me on a quite a journey, and I’m still enjoying the ride.

So thanks Wendi….keep ’em coming!

Working nights doesn’t exactly make it easy to do things during the week, especially when you work a 13 and a half hour night shift…with an hour and a quarter drive at either end of it, like I do! So waking up yesterday to find I had a flat tyre due to a copper nail was a bit of  a drag.

Anyway, set about changing the wheel, only to discover the spare was worse than any tyre I’ve ever seen on a car, with the biggest dent in the rim you could get and still have a tyre intact on it! So that was out of the question, with the time constraints to make it to work, and the limited cooperation from local tyre dealers, I ended up getting a near new tyre from the scrap dealer, and heading back home to grab everything and go to work. (Tyre fine) Stopped at Westbury to get fuel…tyre flat (same wheel)….so pumped it up, and set off, got as far as Warminster…flat tyre.

At this point, I decided to put the spare on and take a slow, careful drive to work, so I set off again. Driving along the A36 at a sedate 40 mph and avoiding every bump and drain cover, and suddenly there is an awful noise from the back of the car. I stopped and went to the back expecting to see the wheel down on the rim, but no…I hadn’t latched the carrier up properly, so it had dropped down and was dragging along the the floor. So carry on, and made it to work….much to my, and everyone else’s, amazement.

When I went to the tyre centre round the corner in Downton to get it all put right, the South African chap that owns the place said…”Fuck me! You drove on THAT?” well….no….I put it on and carried the car here!…but anyway, he put it right and didn’t charge much, one brand new tyre, and straightened the rim out and made a good safe spare…so thank you Downton Tyre Services! It means I can drive over to sunny Wales and see my daughter and grandsons on Sunday 🙂 and believe me, I need some down time after the day yesterday and the night from hell on CNCs that followed…..thinking about it…when I found the flat tyre, I should have done the sensible thing and gone back to bed!!!

After seeing the weather forecast for SP2 area for tomorrow, I’d imagine that the people and parents going to the football tournament at South Newton tomorrow will be coming away and saying “one of those days” as they’re trying to dry out and warm up. Good luck to all those playing though, and the poor chap who spent hours getting everything looking nice for it.

I’ve always liked seeing old traditions maintained, particularly when they’re regional, and the older, the better!

So it was rather nice to go down to Great Wishford in sunny Wiltshire, and see the Oak Apple day celebrations peculiar to the village….only it wasn’t sunny….it pissed down some of the time, drizzled at others, and remained steadfastly grey and windy for the rest on the Saturday. But still, for all that, we had a good time, and enjoyed the offerings of the beer tent.

Wishford villagers with St Gile's church in the background

Oak Apple begins with a procession of noisy villagers moving through the village, chanting “Grovely, Grovely, Grovelly and all Grovely”, and waking everyone, then a procession up to Grovely Woods to collect a bough of oak, which is taken back to the village, decorated with coloured ribbons and hung from the tower of St. Giles church, it’s called the Marriage Bough and is to bring good luck to those married in the church in the coming year…..then it’s breakfast at the Royal Oak and then on into Salisbury to the cathedral.

This year's float in the village

The villagers gather in Cathedral Close then walk in a procession to the west door, where four women dressed in early 19th century costume perform two dances, one with oak twigs, and the second with “nitches” or bundles of dry wood. After the dance, the Dean and Chapter lead the procession to the high altar, where the Charter is read out, the villagers answer with the shout of “Grovely, Grovely, Grovely and all Grovely”, there are only three “Grovely”s in the Charter, the extra one is thrown  to make it “three for them and the other for us!”

The "Nitche Women" perform their dance.

After this it’s back to the village and lunch, then comes the procession through the village and the fete, the procession begins at Town End, above Grovely Cottages, and goes round the viullage, there are floats, a band, all the children from the local school, founded in 1722. At the site of the festivities, the dance by the “Nitche women” is performed again, followed by folk dancing by the children from the school, Maypole dancing and Morris men, other entertainment is usually on offer as well as a display of the childrens art, and the presentation of the prizes, including one for the best presented scarecrows – which are set up outside peoples’ houses and judged in the morning, won this year by Di Shergold and her grandchildren, Jessica, Max and Billy. The beer tent is always well attended, and the barbecue does good trade.

The celebration was split over Saturday and Sunday this year, with the cathedral part on the Sunday.

The winning entry in the scarecrow competition

All in all, it’s a great day out for the family, and well worth going along to!

Morris Dancers at the fete

It’s one of those tricky questions isn’t it? everyone sees everyone else differently, does it even matter if there are those who despise you when there are so many more who care about you?

The expectations of perfection some require of us is often beyond our abilities to achieve, it doesn’t always matter, but there are times, and people, where you wish it could be otherwise.

Changing a person’s entrenched perception of you is an extremely difficult, if not impossible task, I speak from experience.

Perhaps if we were all more tolerant, and less demanding of perfections in others we fall short of ourselves, the world would be a happier place.