Monthly Archives: October 2010

It seems I come first, after all!

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“It’s OK”
“Don’t worry about it”

Well, that’s what I wrote. Apparently it wasn’t her fault. Well, I thought, then let’s not beat about the bush. “When is the wedding?”, I write.

“What wedding?” and then, “He’s not getting married”.

OK, well that’s enough then.

I just write, “How strange”

Of course, I was asked why it was strange. I explained that several people, to whom I have mentioned ‘the wedding’, were just surprised I knew about it rather than not understanding what I was on about – which is what you just did (although I didn’t add the last bit – only thought it).

“There’s no date set”. So, and the “What wedding” and the “not getting married” bit, then? What was that?

Basta

And don’t be thinking of getting angry with me about the short shrift. I can’t stand lying and you, as one of the people who were there at the time, should know better. It seems not.

It’s not that it’s a massive surprise but, still ………….

________________________________________________

I’m doing stuff. I mean, sorting stuff out. Much to do. Very busy. Some physical (putting up cupboards, buying new cooker, etc.) and others just practical (paying some bills, sorting out companies, etc.) – but, the important thing is doing it. And it makes me much happier.

Last night he got home really, really late. He lost his way on the way back. Too busy talking to his colleague! Hah! And, so he was very late. He texted to say he would drop his stuff off at home and come to me. I was surprised. I thought that, as he was really tired, he would not come. I can’t go to his place as Rufus is quite ill at the moment and, although on medication, it seems to be taking a while to clear. Up until recently, he would be ill (diarrhea and stuff) about once a month for a couple of days. Now, it seems like once a week. I thought it was eating shit in the dogs areas at first but now I’m not so sure …..

And he is getting so thin. He is just a bag of bones now, especially at the back end. I know it’s how it is but, you know, it is sad to see. Still, he is still walking OK, not falling over (except every so often) and, generally still looking healthy (ish).

But, as he is currently a little ‘unpredictable’ with his toilet there was no way we could go round. Still, I was very happy that F had to decided to come round to mine.

I took the dogs out (it confirmed that Rufus was still ill) and then had a shower.

Then he phoned. Would I mind if he didn’t come round? He was really sorry but he was so tired. If he had known it would be like this, he would have come straight to mine. I do understand. It was a surprise when he said he would come over in the first place. I said not to worry and that I understood and he said:

“Yes, but I wanted to to be with you and the babies”.

It seems I come first, after all!

Tidying up a bit.

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This post is full of lines and paragraphs from old, draft posts. Posts that never ‘made it’. I like some of the bits below though and, now, I have got rid of all these draft posts.

Enjoy!

The feeling that ‘I’ve seen all this before’ prevails and I mistake that for being wise.

I read an interview today. Someone said that he didn’t want to be content. That content sounded like ‘maturity’ and that implied decay.

A single lie that I find out means that everything that is said might be false. Probably is false.

Funny, isn’t it. Some people spend their whole time trying to convince you they are someone that they’re not.

He sings songs to Dino. The latest one is:

pupi pupazzo ¨ un cane pazzo
pupi pupazzello ¨ un cane bello
pupi pupazzino ¨ un bel bambino
tu che sei dino
sei un cane carino

>The tour was surprising. Mostly because most of it remained the same or, nearly the same. England’s green and pleasant land remaining green and pleasant – with lots of sheep and cows and, so, lots of photo opportunities!

Yes, he was probably bored, the sheep being a welcome distraction.

We drank beer, he ate fish and chips and I ate lamb. We walked around the towns. We went to the church where my Grandfather was buried. I tried to explain but found that I couldn’t really.

My Grandfather was 83 when he died; my Grandmother, 85. They lived quite long, really.

His philosophy on life was that you had a good life if you were ‘content’. And he’s right and always was. My father never understood that, always striving onwards and upwards as he did and now probably having died before he was even 70.

We exchange few words, the woman who owns them and I. It’s too early in the morning for me to understand Italian and, anyway, we don’t need to talk. I’m not good in the mornings. Today neither she nor her dogs are there, of course.

Gotta be strong. Gotta say ‘no’.

This meant asking for the stuff. F said to get 1 etto (100 grams) of prosciutto and half an etto of coppa and salami. I asked about buying the pre-packed stuff, saying that I wasn’t sure the deli was open but the horrified look on his face said all that I needed to know.

However some friends (of theirs) turned up just as we had started and hadn’t been invited to dinner and just sat on the sofa, reading, whilst we spent the next couple of hours eating.

At that point I began to realise that certain ‘strong’ memories of his were, as most people’s are, just a figment of his imagination.

Well, you know, fuck that for a lark.

I hope he doesn’t let you down but fear he will. But, please don’t be asking me why V has not been in touch or not come round to see you. He’s not my responsibility any more and I don’t have to make the excuses like I used to – go figure it all out for yourself.

Let’s say that we’ve both given each other some shit over the years so we must be ‘even’ by now but, still, fuck you for believing in what V has said. It is, in the nicest possible way, utter bullshit and for you, an intelligent guy, I thought, to have fallen for V’s greatest trick, makes you a fool at the very least.

“It’s the same for me”, he writes. I misinterpret that a little

Of course, it will never be ‘over’. Undoubtedly, I shall be ‘paying’ for it, in one way or another for the rest of my life and there will always be some little thing that will come back and haunt me but ….. still ……..

I realise now that I never understood him (probably, in much the same way as he quite obviously never understood me).

He always went from ‘mad passion’ for some friend or other to another. I learnt to avoid getting too attached to them (unless I really liked them too), knowing that it wouldn’t last that long in any event. The last time I did this, I was worn down after years of being told that this person was wonderful; I didn’t think so. Within a year or so of my ‘giving in’ the glorious affair was over but with such suddenness and such hatred that I vowed never to put myself in that position again – and I never did.

…. but there will be that falseness behind it. The people that you don’t exactly ‘dislike’ but that, if they aren’t there, actually don’t mean that much to you.

I just wish that the closure of these paragraphs would reach the closure of the chapter. We have both moved on and these things do not help either of us.

The old man rang yesterday. I knew it was him, since my phone said ‘Unknown Number’. I was driving the first time, walking from the car to my house the second, and doing something else on the third. It was the fourth occasion that I answered. “It will only take 10 minutes”, he assured me. I was not assured. I am assured that it will mean I am at least an hour later back at home – of that I am 90% certain, even if the actual work does only take 10 minutes.

And then that made me think about his blog. Do I want anything? At first glance, that would be no. The reality is, I think, that I do want something.

F is still feeling ill. Last night he had a stomach ache. He blames it on the food and drink he has had over the last few days – but it’s not that. It’s the drugs that he’s been taking. I try to tell him but he’s not listening and he’s Italian so he has a different view as to what causes things. I know it’s that because he stopped taking any tablets and his stomach was fine and then, last night, he got more syrup and some tablets and took one of the tablets and then suffered stomach ache.

He’s not really good with suffering – as most men; as most Italian men.

Untold truths make for a lonely world

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I’m sort of glad that I didn’t write this post earlier. It would have been a bitter and angry post and, rather than that, this morning, driving to work, I suddenly reached a better understanding of it all.

Now, rather than feeling bitter or angry, I feel sorry for them. It doesn’t detract from the fact that I don’t like lies and feel that it isn’t right to lie, especially to me, but I cannot change people and I have to accept it for what it is.

Still, I learnt some things on the way.

The Final Question remains unresolved (but not from my side, you understand) and I now accept, as I said to a mutual friend the other day, that it will always be so. I must now learn not to think about it; to put it out of my mind.

And, anyway, it’s not so much lies. It’s more things left unsaid. Things that should, by rights, be said, aren’t said. They are avoided. My one last (but even as I write it I know there will be one more) act of defiance at these untold truths was a couple of days ago. It was cruel, since I now know the truth and I feel slightly ashamed. But only slightly. After all, even if I had not known the untold truth, it would have been done that way. It only remains ‘cruel’ because of what I now know.

And the untold truth leads to other untold truths and the whole thing becomes an untold truth. And it’s no longer that they are untold truths, in themselves, but rather that the untold truths mean that the whole thing is put into doubt and no truths can be told because to tell some truth may unravel the neat untold truths and it would then be seen for what it is – a life of lies.

“I can’t stand all the fabulousness”, I was told. It was meant that, it’s difficult to stomach all the fabulousness about everything when you know, because you’ve been told, because you know, that underneath all that fabulousness is ‘not-fabulousness’.

But, for me, it’s not even that. What these untold truths mean is that you can no longer talk to someone who, at one time, you were happy to call a friend, about your concerns and worries; you can no longer ask for help; and when something good really happens, you can no longer tell that either because to tell that would imply that, after all, it hasn’t been that fabulous after all; and that would mean to imply that, perhaps, you had not been previously telling all the truth.

And so, you say nothing. You cannot say anything. The communication can start but cannot continue. And so I send an email. And I get a reply. And then I send the reply with the cruel question – for now, I know the reality. And that’s where the communication stops. Or else, as some text messages in August prove, the question or query or statement that you send is completely ignored as if it was never written – because, of course, there is no answer that can be given that is either logical, fair or true – and if you know that much, how can you respond?

And I started out being angry and then became bitter and then I realised that, actually, it was not me that was suffering as a result of this but rather them. And, at that point I actually felt rather sorry for them and thought that, for me, even if I could lie (or not tell the truth) which, in any case, I don’t do well, I would not be able to stand the fact that I could not talk to my friends about the things that were hurting or the problems I was facing and nor could I celebrate when I was triumphant and, in any of those circumstances, I would be missing something and would feel more lonely as a result.

>And, so, in the end I felt so sorry for them for the untold truths make for a lonely world.

I wonder about the shoe

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It is dark and I am stopped in the traffic. I see something on the road. I’m sure it is a shoe. It looks quite small and yet not quite small enough to be a child’s shoe. I wonder how that happens, that a shoe comes off and flies across the road some way away.

The man comes and picks it up. It is a shoe. Still, it was nice of him to bother to pick it up. I wonder if it was worse than I had thought? I wonder if it was the van that was in the middle of the road? I wonder why the person who was (almost certainly) crossing the road, didn’t see it coming? Probably the rain and the dark – like it’s midnight. But that would make me, had I been the pedestrian, be more careful. And, anyway, I’ve always thought this was a particularly stupid place to put a pedestrian crossing. The blue lights from the ambulance that is parked next to the white van flash in my mirrors. I thank goodness that it’s not me.

It will make me late for work. Still, I have been and continue to drive more carefully. Both because of the torrential rain and the darkness. The dark, I think, is because of the low, black clouds. Although, obviously, this time of year (and very soon anyway), both morning and evening will be dark; will be night.

I still wonder how the shoe came off and why it went so far from the accident? I feel sorry for both the pedestrian and the van driver.

The Dead Parrot – or, rather, not at all.

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I squeeze into the back.  It’s not a problem but A (F’s friend) and F are already in.  We drive on to go to the restaurant.

As we’re driving up the road to go to the restaurant, I notice a movement.

Now, a lot of Taxi drivers like to fill the front of their car with stuff.  After all, it is their ‘office’ I suppose.  And so there are things that make them more comfortable.

However, I am shocked to see that, perched on the dashboard, just to the right of the wheel, is a parrot!  Yes, you read it correctly.  On his dashboard is a living, breathing parrot!

And here is the picture to prove it:

We took photos of it.  It got angry (so the man said) and started squawking so we stopped using our flashes.  Obviously it’s not a good picture but, nonetheless, it’s proof.

It was just so funny.  The parrot’s name is Gilda.  Unfortunately, after he gave it the name he found out it was a male parrot and not a female parrot, which makes it funnier still.

An unusual thing to see in the taxi.  Keep your eye out, should you be in Milan and taking a taxi.  Maybe, you too will share a journey with Gilda!

Eating babies

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“I can eat the baby”.

Their equivalent of “I could eat a horse”.

Except, of course, here, they do eat horse, so I suppose it’s not quite the same.

S was hungry so went to lunch a little earlier than usual.  It was her explanation why she went early. Still there are strange things here :-D

Re-living it all

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It’s been difficult – and I wasn’t expecting it.

As I explained previously, I found that, during the transfer of this blog, some rather strange characters had appeared and the photographs for certain posts no longer appeared.  So, I decided to fix them.  This meant going through all the posts from the beginning (and that’s nearly 800 posts now)!

I have learnt a number of things:
1.  I write a lot of crap.
2.  Most posts are not nearly as interesting as I must have thought they were at the time.
3.  I don’t always remember what I am talking about.  There again, some of them brought back some memories of events or situations.
4.  I know that V and I split at the end of November, almost two years ago and, yet, it took me almost a month to write anything about it.

And, I found, surprisingly, that reading through some of the posts from December onwards brought back the memories.  Rather than ‘brought them back’, it would be better to say ‘made me re-live’.  This was not so good.  They weren’t bitter memories just sad; sad memories for what should have been and wasn’t, for a future that I thought was, more or less, secure and, in fact, was like wet tissue paper – falling apart in my hands.  Even for the two years previously, there were some posts that hinted at what was to happen but the actual events, the actual posts, my fears, shock, despair – they are all tangible to me in the posts I wrote.

In a strange way, I am grateful to have them, to be able to read them.  I am also grateful that it didn’t seem to last too long as I am now up to the point where I have selected the-perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street and I can see, through the writing, that I have come through the worst of it and I know it gets better after that (well apart from the crazy few weeks).

So, sorry not to be posting but I will be back soon, I promise!

How do you KNOW you don’t like it?

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“I think I’ve had this before”, he says, adding “and I don’t like it”.

It was very difficult to keep the disappointment out of my voice …. but I tried.

“Well”, I said, “try a little and, if you don’t like it, it’s OK, you don’t have to eat it”.

I had whipped up the cream. The cream was really for me rather than him. “You don’t like cream”, I realised this as I got it out of the fridge. Damn! I should have done custard. Ah, well, I thought, if he doesn’t like it anyway then it’s better I did cream.

I put a couple of spoonfuls of the sweet in the dish and added a little cream after he indicated it was OK to do so.

He tried it. It wasn’t the same as he had had before. He said he liked it. Then got some more from the dish. And some more cream. He asked about the topping. I explained that it was pastry, like for Lemon Meringue Pie but more butter and more sugar and without water so that it was crumbs rather than pastry as such. I tried not to be annoyed by the fact that he says he doesn’t like something before he has tried it first but I don’t say anything about that anyway. It took me a few years to train V away from that. I have time. I can train F, possibly, probably, hopefully. I am hoping, much like I did with V, that I can introduce things gradually and get him to trust that what I make is all right and worth trying. I’m not sure I have the patience for this but we’ll give it a go.

I said you can make it with any fruit.

He really did like it, it seems. I told him that he must tell me the truth because, if he says he likes something, I will do it again. He said he will.

I told him it was, to my memory, the first time I had made it. Although, to be honest, even if I can’t remember it, I am sure I must have made it in the past. Maybe Rhubarb Crumble and not Blackberry and Blueberry Crumble.

The next day, he texts me to ask what it was called because he doesn’t remember. Later that night I asked him why he had needed to know. Apparently, there was a guy there from the office in London and he wanted to tell him.

I see, in his fridge, there is a jar of Lemon Curd in the door.

“You can make Lemon Curd Tart”, I said, meaning I could make Lemon Curd Tart, of course. Later, he says I can take it home together with the Banana Curd he bought at the same time, when we were in Hay-on-Wye.

“You can make that cake with it” (meaning Crumble”), he says. I say yes, even if he has, clearly, not understood how Crumble works and that a Banana Curd Crumble just would not be right at all. Ah, well.

Just updating old posts is all

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Sorry for no new posts.

I discovered that all my photographs had disappeared from the old posts when I brought the database over from the old hoster – and some of the symbols (-, “, ©, etc.) had morphed into a strange selection of symbols.

So, I am updating and putting the pictures back.

A side effect of this is that, as I re-post an old post, if there is a link to another of my pages, it is showing up as a new ping-back!

I’m hoping that it won’t take too long to do but we shall see. Please bear with me :-)