Express Train

There are just 2 weekends to go and then it’s almost our holiday. I say “our” meaning mine, since F won’t be with me the first week.

Instead, Best Mate will be.

I am just so ready for this holiday. The problem is that I know that the holiday will also pass like an express train so, although I can’t wait for it to come, I also don’t want it to come, if you see what I mean. For as soon as it starts, it will seem to end.

There is also the weather. As usual, it is incredibly hot. It is July and this is normal. The problem is that last year, the end of July also triggered a significant change in the weather, for the worse. I’m hoping this year is not the case.

People are, as usual, complaining that it’s too hot – although the temperatures are only in the mid-thirties °C (although the temperature felt is closer to the forties.) The rain which my forecast keeps promising is due in the next 10 days (for about the last three weeks) has failed to materialise – but today does seem as if it might rain.

Over the next couple of weekends, we’re going to try out a few restaurants nearby, so that I have places to take Best Mate who will be with me for just over a week. Obviously, we have some – Bati Bati (lardo and asparagus pizza), Venezia (fish), La Brace (meat) – but we need more. I have also thought that, maybe, one night we do a barbecue in the garden. We’ll see how it goes. I’m very easy-going about it all tbh.

So, only 17 days to go until I pick BM up from the airport and start my hols! Yeah!!

Books, beach and stuff

Well, my last book, finished just this evening (Saturday) was Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir. It’s taken me about 5 Days, so more than Dickens’ Bleak House!

It’s not that it wasn’t Interesting, it was just a bit overfull with facts rather than story. Hilary Mantel, you have a lot to answer for! ;-). Weir made a good case for her being quite powerful, behind the scenes and for her and Henry VII having a loving marriage but, still too Many facts (how much money she gave and to whom, bills paid and for what – essential, I know, for trying to determine her actual life but not easy to read.)

So now on to Ali Smith’s How To Be Both, winner of loads of prizes – which is why I have it – notably, the Bailey’s Woman’s Prize.

I am alone at the beach full of people. F got loads of the small blisters yesterday And the chemist said to avoid the sun, so he’s at the house with the dogs. Later, we go back to Milan without him. He has another week here and I have another week of 35 degrees and getting up at 5.20 every day. I am already exhausted by the very thought of it!

But I’ll survive. I lay in the sun for a bit but was sweating like Niagera (spelling?) Falls so, after about 10 minutes, I was back In the shade of the umbrella.

I miss F but couldn’t stay at the house as he was going to “clean a bit”!

So, I sit typing this and, after I post this, back to my book.

Hope you have a lovely Sunday.

Hang on in there!

Hang on in there!

I am exhausted, to be honest. The holiday, in a little more than 4 weeks, can’t come soon enough. It seems I never stop.

Take last night. I rush home from work, park the car, walk to the supermarket, momentarily forgetting that it’s about 34°C and therefore walking down the street with full sun on my back rather than a slightly longer way, mostly in the shade. I buy the minimum of stuff and walk back home down the shady streets.

Arriving home, as soon as I step through the door, having stopped “doing something”, I do my Niagara Falls impression. I put away the milk and stuff, change out of my suit (I had customers at work), put on shorts and a T-shirt. Within a second my T-shirt is soaked but there’s not really much I can do. I need to take the dogs out as I need to be back by 7.

I take them out. We do a slightly shorter walk in the heat. It’s too hot for them. I get home and Niagara starts again. Half an hour later, I change my T-shirt as the Falls have stopped (thank God) but the T-shirt is completely soaked. I could manage it better if I didn’t have to rush – but I have no choice but to rush.

After my appointment, I get to read the document that someone has sent me to look at. It seems serious. I text to say that we need to talk. She asks if now is possible and I agree (I shall be busy tomorrow and I want to pack for the weekend) so we meet at Bar Blanco, the nearest bar to my house. I tell her how bad it could be but that I’ve managed to find someone who may be able to help. It’s going to cost her anyway. She is grateful, for sure, but we end up having a drink which means I’m late taking the dogs out and so late to bed.

With less that 5 hours sleep, I feel like shit. But, I feel I have to help her and cannot just walk away.

But, it costs. The cost being my tiredness.

I don’t really need the appointment tonight but it has to be. Then pack. Then the dogs. Then bed – early, I really hope. I don’t want to drive all the way down there and then spend the whole of the weekend asleep! Not that I CAN sleep on the beach, but “sleepy mode”, if I’m tired, can mean a subdued and exhausting weekend.

But, F is being “made” to take 2 weeks holiday. That’s fair enough, since for over a month he has been home for about 4 days in total. He, too, is exhausted. He is with his mother for this time, with us going down for this weekend and next.

But it’s hard for me too. I have to do everything and there’s no time and the heat means I can’t take my time – although I much prefer this heat to the cold and, if I could just take things more slowly, I’d be fine!

But, only just over a week to go before he’s back home and we can share the dog walking. And just over 4 weeks an I shall be with Best Mate AND on holiday.

Hang on in there, I tell myself.

A night at Blue Note and the thoughts in my head; downloading a video from Facebook

I can’t help but stare at him.

He’s young, probably about 25. He has that “floppy” hair that seems in favour, certainly with the gay people, here, in Milan, and he has a “kind of” beard. He plays the violin.

I stare at him because of the thoughts in my head. They race through, from one thing to another.

How lives are different; when I was his age; I could have been in this world; I’m envious that I’m not in this world; how fascinating to be creative; I wonder how much he practices; assuming he’s gay, I wonder what his boyfriend’s like; or maybe he has no time for that; always practising; up late every night performing; no money; no, I couldn’t have done that – no willpower to keep practising; how much do the whole band practise; he doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the band, they are much older, like “this is where not-famous musicians go to die”; but he’s too young for that – he has still to “make it”; so why is he here on stage with the oldies (none of them will be under 40); I wonder what his life’s really like; does he really have another job and this is only a hobby he wishes were something more; I wish I could do something creative; but I’m good with people; but that’s not really creative, is it; I wonder if I could do something creative with that skill; I would like to be on stage again; how did I get here – listening to this, in a foreign land, in a foreign tongue; am I lucky and will it always feel strange?

And so on, and so on.

That’s one thing.

There’s another.

We are at the concert of a “friend”. I mean, she’s not really a close friend but a friend of one of F’s colleagues, I. And she is a florist. And she sings. Good enough to have the stage at Blue Note in Milan – the kind of jazz/blues venue. And she was a student of mine once, for about 6 lessons.

We, in the audience, are a group of 5. There’s I, another girl, S, who is a very close friend and also works in one of the shops, and E who I’ve never met before. But they all know R, the singer. We don’t have a great place to see, being at the side of the stage but R has to walk past us to the stage and gives F her mobile asking him to take some pictures.

So, during the whole thing, F, E, S and I are taking videos and photos with her phone and theirs and then checking the photos and checking with each other for the best photos.

About the second song into the set, I am struck by the fact that, if I look around the place, everyone is watching R sing – except all the people in our group, who are, instead, checking their phones. OK, so R asked them for some photos but, really, even if all these people are friends of R, how come our world is now only really seen through the small screen of a telephone?

I find it a shame, really. People, as last night, are so busy with the technology, they forget to enjoy the experience.

I ate almost the whole plate of chips. And had two beers. And, after the concert, we went for an Indian. And, after a while, R and the entourage came too. But without the guy I mentioned at the beginning.

Of course.

Anyway, I’ve found out how to download a video from Facebook – that is, 1. Open the video in a new tab; 2. Change the part of the url from “www” to “m” and press enter; 3. As the video is playing, right click and “Save target as …..” which will save a copy to your hard disk.

Unfortunately, it seems the video doesn’t work (on this page – although I can play it on my desktop).  Damn the problem with browsers not supporting certain formats, etc.  Still working on it though.

00:00 00:00

spaceplay / pause

qunload | stop

ffullscreen

shift + slower / faster

volume

mmute

seek

 . seek to previous

126 seek to 10%, 20% … 60%

In the meantime ……

It’s not that I haven’t been writing.

It’s just that I haven’t been able to finish anything.

I don’t know – it’s a strange time. F has been away for almost a month now. I was joking with people the other day that I didn’t know who he was. Of course, the side-effect of this is that I have been incredibly busy, since I have to do everything at home. I don’t mind that, of course, but it all takes time.

There’s also another thing. Since I moved the blog and went through all the posts to delete some and ensure links still worked, I’ve become a bit more aware of the better writing and the boring stuff (this would go under the heading of “boring stuff”) and there’s a part of me that doesn’t finish the posts simply because I realise it’s not good writing or it falls into the category of “boring stuff”.

Of course, I should get over this. I can always delete posts later if they are really boring – like I did when I tidied things up after the move.

Also, because I’ve been so busy, there is also much less angst than usual and, as you will know, angst results in better writing. So, too busy = less angst = worse writing. A no win situation.

There have been many things that I’ve wanted to comment about, from the news, from life – but nothing really “strong”, nothing really important.

I am well. The dogs are well. F is stressed and tired but well. Summer is coming (it’s reasonably warm here if a bit temporal.)

So, that’s another thing – nothing is really happening.

Still, there ARE posts I want to finish so, who knows, maybe I will finish them soon.

In the meantime, apart from this post, I’ve been posting songs 8as you may have noticed) as a temporary stop-gap. Sorry.

Trying something new

I have, this year, downloaded an app to my phone which, in theory, permits me to write posts. This is my first attempt. Problems may be caused by the poor reception here which, for example, has meant I can’t reply to Gail’s comment on the post below.

Anyway, if this works then that would be a great step forward for the summer!

Not first, last nor everything

Not first last nor everything

2nd June is a national holiday here.

It is also the date that I met V all those years ago. Of course, I don’t forget that. He remains a significant part of my life even if a “past” part.

But as the years go on and my relationship with F becomes fuller with memories that we have of our own, the date itself becomes less important (although it will always remain significant.)

During my trip back to Milan I had several calls and texts. I don’t answer them as I am driving and really don’t want to be distracted when I’m hurtling along the motorway!

So I looked when I got back home.

And one of them was from V.

Obviously from an English phone. But it’s too strange. The things that are written are as if we are still together. Except one sentence:

I hope you feel comfortable to think of me and us on this very special day

Well, yes, of course I’m comfortable. I had already thought of it, of you – but it’s memories now and not the here and now. Here and now I’m on the beach, soaking up the sun. This is my life now.

One thing was a bit unfortunate although it may have been a slip of the fingers on the keyboard – he said it was 28 years ago – whereas, in fact, it was 27. I couldn’t resist pointing that out. Was that bad of me?

But, anyway, I’m afraid I can’t reply in the same way as he wrote. I told the truth which is that I don’t forget and am grateful I met him 27 years ago. For, as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be here now without him. I wouldn’t have been lying on a beach on the Tuscan coast if it weren’t for him. But, I’m afraid he’s not “my first, my last, my everything” as he put. He was but now he isn’t.

And, anyway, given his modus operandi, the stuff he writes or says aren’t always exactly the truth. And if it is the truth, this becomes lopsided relationship since it isn’t reciprocated. It’s not that I don’t wish him well, nor that I don’t have love for him, it’s just that he isn’t my everything (nor even my first or last).

He’s someone who was a big part of my life and because of whom I am here, with F and for that reason he remains a part of my life. But only a part.

Running out of books …….. again!

Running out of books again

Well, we’ve started the summer and, by that I mean we went down to Carrara for the weekend.

I had an extra 2 days (the Tuesday being a national holiday here and so the Monday being what they call a bridge day – but it’s mandatory and taken out of your holiday allowance) whilst F, bless him, had to leave on Sunday because he was flying to Greece on the Monday (for work).

I didn’t want to take a huge suitcase so took three books with me. They were: Reasons To Stay Alive (I had to finish that one off), The Humans (would be a just-in-case reread – it being one of my favourite books last year) – both by Matt Haig and Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards which I “won” and was, therefore, free.

Reasons To stay Alive was a good book. I was hoping it would help me with BM but I’m not sure it will really. Of course, I finished that within an hour or so. So, then on to Because She Loves Me. I did really enjoy this book. I don’t know that it’s my “usual” read these days being a cross between romantic fiction and thriller but I enjoyed reading it and I didn’t guess “whodunit” which was good.

But, unfortunately, I finished that within two days and so I was on to the re-read of The Humans. This remains a great book but it was a different read this time around as, in fact, it was his thoughts on Depression and during his Depression wrapped up in a type of Science Fiction (although I really think that’s the wrong genre for it – I think it’s more of a book on what it is to be a human being – even on the first read), as explained in Reasons To Stay Alive.

I tried to slow down my reading but it didn’t really work and so, in the end I had to start re-reading Reasons To Stay Alive!

Needless to say that last night I gathered together all my books to be read. I don’t want to be in that position again! And I find, to my surprise, that I have quite a lot of books to be read, so that is great.

This weekend, we go down again and, this time, a number of those books will be coming with me!

p.s. The weather was quite nice and mostly sunny but the wind was quite cold. The temperatures were about mid-20s°C

How is it possible to work?

This is another draft post from a while ago (I’m not sure when now – but sometime before March of 2014).

I am, of course, good at my job.

This is in part because I am old and, therefore, have a LOT of experience across different competencies.

It is also, in part, because I am able to see both the “bigger picture” (as it’s come to be known) and yet have an eye for detail.

And, you know the most frustrating thing about work, in general? Most people don’t have this – however bloody old they are. And now I’m working in Italy and, in particular, for a smaller company which (as far as I can tell) is run like businesses have always been run here.

So, to give an example. I need some information. This is fairly simple information which will be given to a customer. It requires about, say, half an hours thought and ten minutes writing down. Worse still, one of the people to supply me this information has actually already done this but his boss is blocking it because ……. well, just because he’s a complete arse, I suspect.

The dialogue involved the fact that they can’t give me the information because they haven’t had the material to look at. Well, I know that. We’re looking for guesses right now. There’s no way we can do more. And I won’t be holding them to these guesses in the future, as I explained. But I do need more than the couple of lines that they produced originally. After all, sending our customer those couple of lines would have made us seem really quite stupid! As I explained.

So, as I couldn’t get the information to do my job I had to go to the MD to explain. She, of course, understood immediately, what was required. And has told the arse-hole now and I shall now get the information that I could have had yesterday.

Perhaps I should be more like the effing Italians – wait until the shit hits the fan and let them take the shit?

Sometimes, I just want to say “fuck it all”. Dozy pillocks!

Life threads – so frail?

This was a draft post from March of this year. I don’t know why it wasn’t posted and, maybe I meant to say more. But I think it stands anyway. So, here it is.

As my regular readers know, a lot of the stuff I post is stuff in my head which bears no resemblance to what I actually do or say nor to what people who don’t read this blog think that I’m thinking. Nor, sometimes, to reality.

For the stuff in my head is intangible and floats and changes depending on the crap that I may be thinking about at the time.

And so, this morning, I wake up with that feeling of dread. Again.

There’s no reason for it. Or, rather, there are reasons but they aren’t real … yet and, quite possibly will never be real. They are, of course, my “nightmares” of the waking hours – as opposed to my nightmares when I am asleep, of which I’ve had plenty just over the last few days. Not the same. All different.

So, this feeling of dread. It’s as if something bad is just about to happen. Like I’m on a knife-edge of a reality where everything starts to go horribly wrong. And, yet, nothing has gone wrong so far.

But the feeling persists. Maybe it’s the recent incidents involving V? After all, the fall from who he was to what he is now (as far as I can tell) spans less than 6 years. Can a normal, ordinary life have so short a thread that is can become unwound in such a short time? Well, yes, of course. And I’ve known that for such a long time too. I remember teaching a guy on a programme called Restart – a government funded programme to get unemployed people into work.

This guy told me how he’s had a good job, wife kids, house, etc. And within a couple of years lost it all simply by being made redundant. He’s been a roadsweeper at one point and told me of having people spit at him. He was a decent guy who wanted to work but then, all those years ago, by the time you were over 50 you were considered “past it” (I was about 25 at the time and I was teaching people how to rewrite their CV, write letters, etc.)

And, of course, from that point it’s not far to be one of those people without a home, no prospect of any type of job and sleeping on the street.