Tag Archives: Experiences

Running out of books …….. again!

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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?

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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?

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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.

Identity. Crisis?

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Another draft post. Certainly not finished but I as can’t remember what I was trying to say, I’ll just leave it as it is.

From about November 2014.

Identity is quite a strange thing, isn’t it?

And by that, I mean to say, the way that you identify yourself and the way that you project that identity is strange. Of course, it’s “flexible”, as it depends on the situation you’re in or the way that you feel.

If you were asked to list the things by which you identify yourself and in the order which typically classifies that identity, how would you do? I mean, starting at the beginning, what is the one thing that absolutely, critically, makes you “you”?

You might say, “Engineer” or “Retired” or “Teacher” or something like that. But, in reality, this does not make you “you” since there are many other people who could claim the same thing and, in any case, surely what you “do” is not really that significant.

You might wonder what the hell got me to thinking about this? Well, it was yesterday or the day before, when I was thinking that, actually, I don’t feel very much like a “gay” person and I didn’t want to “be” one. Please don’t misinterpret that. It wasn’t that I suddenly wanted to be “straight”, just that I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into that category. I didn’t want to feel like I had to “dress up” to that image.

And that got me to thinking that, in fact, in general, I don’t follow that line. Being gay is actually not really me at all. Being gay is just a single aspect of me that means I view men as “sexual” partners rather than women (and, I should add – not all men – in fact, few men – just in case you got the wrong idea!). It doesn’t really explain/determine many other aspects of me.

For example, I like the colour blue. It’s my favourite colour. Many of my clothes have some blue involved. I choose many “blue” things over other things that are not blue. Yet we don’t try to define people by what colour is their favourite colour. And, why not? Because it makes not a jot of difference to us …………….

Ghosts

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A draft post from August, 2014. Never finished, I guess, but I’ll post it now anyway.

I’m lying on the sofa. It’s dark and I can’t sleep. At the same time, I don’t want to wake F, hence the sofa. I contemplate going to the computer but I know that, if I do that, I will be awake for at least an hour. So I’m trying to sleep here.

There was an old woman who had the flat before. I don’t know if she died here, in this flat. But, I’m thinking about ghosts. What if her ghost were to appear right now? Right there, in the corner between the new units housing books and the television and the old bookcase? In that corner where it’s very dark?

I could “see” her, even if nothing was there. And nothing was there since I was imagining what she would look like if she were to be there, as a ghost, I mean. But she wasn’t. There was just an empty, dark space.

But I couldn’t sleep because the (non-)ghost made me think of other ghosts. Ghosts from the past that appear, wispy and insubstantial and may, given the space, permissions and time, become more substantial. These aren’t real ghosts, of course, but real things that come into and disappear from your life but, then, have never really disappeared, however much you may wish it. You may think something is dead and buried but it never really is.

Lies, damned lies or much, much worse.

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Another of those draft posts written but never published. This from July 2014. Maybe now the blog is more “secret” I feel better about posting it?

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Of course, you never really know anyone, do you?

You have to trust. Or not.

And, then, there’s what someone tells you. Is it always true? If not, is it because they’re trying not to hurt your feelings – a “white” lie. Or, sometimes, is it more sinister than that.

There’ve been cases recently, in the newspapers, for example the girl who accused her boyfriend of rape and later admitted she had made it up just for attention.

Sometimes, it’s for attention. Sometimes, it’s because someone lives in their created world.

I employed a salesman who was like that, once. Later, when we learnt that everything had been a complete fabrication, everything started to fit into place. Unfortunately, by then, he had married one of our other employees and she ended up being taken for a ride too. But she was a strong lady and now lives happily (I think) with their rather delightful son. He, on the other hand, continues on separately from them.

Sometimes, I think it’s malicious. And those are the worst kind of people. They do it for spite, for jealousy, or just to be evil.

So, if, years later, you find out that something you had been told had been a fabrication but, as a result of that something, it had taken you down a road that affected, not only you but others as well, what should you do? How can that purposeful, vicious lie be undone?

Of course, first things first – maybe it wasn’t a lie? Maybe the lies are being told now? How the hell do you find out? Should you find out?

Or, perhaps, in any event, it’s better to leave things as they are? After all, many years have passed, many rivers crossed, many mountains climbed. And what possible good would it do to try and repair something broken by the vindictiveness of someone who’s now dead? What purpose would it serve?

Stockholm’s Underground

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I have been here and used the Underground system, so some of these I’ve actually seen.

What struck me was that it felt less like going into an underground system and more like entering some huge cave complex that just happened to have trains!

Here is a report on it’s beauty.

I originally did this post in June 2014 but it remained in draft for some inexplicable reason.

We go to buy some furniture ….. except I don’t go.

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Originally written mid-June 2014. I don’t know why I didn’t post this!

“You can come if you like.” Those were the words but, for reasons I can’t quite explain, those were not the sentiments. This was more of a “You can come if you really, really want to but I don’t really want you to come because ….. [list of reasons why I don’t want you to come].”

So, correctly, I said, “No, it’s OK, if you don’t mind. I have a lot to do today.”

I DID have some things to do. I wanted to get the Netgear Powerline product to make the computer access faster in the new flat; I wanted to take the duvet to the dry cleaners; I wanted to sort out some more stuff.

As it happens, I was very glad I didn’t go as he took all morning, in the end.

He wanted to buy the kitchen and go to IKEA. I got a photo of how the kitchen would look as it was slightly different after the surveyor had been to measure. Plus, he wanted to get a dishwasher which meant only one sink and not two. But it was OK by me, to be honest.

After the kitchen, he went to IKEA with his list of items he wanted to buy. This was a huge list so, rightly, he wanted to buy it and have them delivery it.

The kitchen will come sometime after 24th July and the IKEA stuff will come this week.

But the difference it made for him was incredible. He’s now so excited. He will start putting everything together as soon as it arrives and then get his carpenter guy to fix it all to the wall. After which, he will start putting his stuff away. Then he will be happy – although he is already looking forward to just putting everything together!

Flapjacks

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Once again, from the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook

4 oz margarine
4 level tablespoons golden syrup
3 oz granulated sugar
8 oz rolled oats
1/4 level teaspoon salt

Put margarine and syrup in pan over low heat until margarine has melted.
Grease square, shallow tin about 7.5 inches
Remove syrup mixture from heat and add the sugar, oats and salt and mix well.
Turn mixture into tin, level off and cook at 335°F/Gas Mark 3/170-175°C for 30 – 40 mins until golden brown.
Leave to cool for about 5 mins then cut into 12 bars. Cut whilst still warm or they’ll just break up.
Place on wire rack to cool
Enjoy

I’m not sure why I didn’t post this last year. Maybe because I didn’t do the usual translation of the ingredients into Italian?

The end is nigh

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This was a draft post from June 2013. It still applies. I don’t think it was properly finished but, no matter. This (and I wish to make it clear in case it is read by someone going through some issues now, in May of 2015) is not about you but about someone else. Remember this post was written in June of 2013 – 2 years ago!

Of course, there’s got to be give and take.

It’s a trade-off, really. One doesn’t get everything one wants – or, not usually.

You may think that you have the same goals but, often, we project the goals we want to on our partner and only look for the signs of confirmation, ignoring those that go against what we think.

Let’s get this straight. I’m not talking about me, here. Although what I’ve said is, in fact, true for me also, the rest of this post is not. Part of the problem is that I don’t really have any goals to project. I leave that to F. He has plans. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know, for certain, that any of those plans include me although there are hints that some of them do. But, it’s not really important to me. I have this “fatalist gene”, of which I am aware and which, in reality, suits me just fine, thanks. Sure, as time passes, I think more of the future – the future together – but I’m not talking about a future as far as, say, when I reach 70 but rather the future as far as, say, Christmas. This future involves the presents I will get him since he is so difficult to buy for. So, I am working on the present for our anniversary (in October) and I have the plan for one of the presents for Christmas. And that’s it. It doesn’t worry me, it’s just the way I think.

So, back to the purpose of this post.

In two days, two different people’s world has been turned a little upside down. And the problem is their relationship with their partner.

But, I have a little experience in relationships and what happens. I give my advice, unasked for, knowing that they will, almost certainly, ignore it but knowing that it is valid and clear advice.

For one person, I suggested that they not search for something on the basis that eventually you will find something and it won’t make things better. Search, by all means but know that it is the end of the relationship as you know it. In fact, the very act of the searching means that the relationship is doomed. It may not result in being single but it will change the relationship to a point that is irrecoverable. Of course, what may then happen is that “a relationship” continues but it is not the same as the relationship you had. There is no “going back” and “undiscovering” the facts that have changed everything.

So, I advised against it but said that, if she were to continue, be aware of the fact that it will all change ……. forever.

She ignored that advice and continued to search and, unsurprisingly, find the facts and was, on Friday, just about holding it together. But that won’t last. And I felt sorry for her even though I knew that the very act of searching could only lead to this result.

The future for her is uncertain. It will depend upon how she and he react. At the moment, he doesn’t know that she has evidence. Or, rather, on Friday he didn’t know. But it’s hard to keep the evidence hidden and not to say something. And then what? Even if there are promises made and a reconciliation done, if it lasts, it won’t be what she had. And will she be happy enough with that?