Sinking, gradually

It hasn't been a bad weekend, really, apart from it coming to an end all too soon, the weather has been OK, apart from the Glasgow experience, I've got out and about, albeit without K, because she went back to work on Saturday, I've had some unhealthy food and too much to drink, and fielded a nice text message from my friend at work telling me that his older son got the GCSE results he needed to get onto the apprenticeship/college course he wanted, citing some, as far as I'm concerned, very minimal help I gave in terms of advice on exam technique as a big deal. But, as the fourth of my five days off is coming to its end, I'm beginning to feel thoroughly down in the mouth. The reason, mostly, anyway, is predictable enough - boys, of course. It started almost as soon as I walked out of the front door this morning, a coltish cutie with his dad making his way down the hill into our local town centre, followed by numerous 'untouchables' on view as I meandered through town, and culminating in a group of three 12/13 year olds, with a couple of girls (one of whom was cute enough in her own right), I encountered during a change of buses not too far from Heathrow this afternoon. I would, without hesitation, have taken any or all of them home, even though only one of them was a real cutie, but, needless to say, there was more chance of getting to the moon by flapping my arms than ever getting close to any of them. The sooner my hiccuping heart knocks me over definitively, the better.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The weekend started....in Glasgow!

After three weeks with only one full day off, and the job around my neck all the time I was at work, I'm now almost two days into a long weekend that couldn't come quickly enough. With K working full time as well, we really haven't had much time to do anything together since she came back from uni, but yesterday was the exception that proves the rule. K is pretty much exclusively vegan now (although she still has the occasional 'flexitarian' moment!), and had mentioned, months ago, that she'd heard, through 'vegan social media' about a place that reputedly served the best vegan burgers in the country. But it was in Glasgow. So, after a few ifs and buts and maybes, we left the flat at 6:00 yesterday morning to begin an almost 16 hour day trip to visit the place. The weather, when we walked out of Glasgow Central station, was vile, but it didn't take too long to walk to the restaurant. Had the place not lived up to expectations, it would've qualified as a thorough wild goose chase, but K's vegan option, and my carnivorous one, were both excellent and plentiful, so we both declared the trip worthwhile. The best part of it all for me, though, was, as ever, spending quality time with my girl, all the more so because we're now beginning to get into the throes of preparing to leave the flat (with elements of completely unnecessary drama from the landlord’s estate agent to make the process even more stressful than it would be anyway). I know I'll still see K often enough, but not having her actually living with me isn't something I'm looking forward to, at all.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'Domicile-ville' it is, then

After what was beginning to become a somewhat concerning silence, I finally got confirmation this morning that I have secured the new, upgraded version of my old room as my 'home' once we leave the flat next month. I've got mixed feelings about the impending move, really - I certainly won't miss the time-consuming commute right across London, but the flat has been far more like a proper home, especially when K has been there, than anything else since I left Cornwall, and the 24/7 public transport in the capital has also been a major bonus. The return from whence I came will also save me a good couple of hundred pounds a month, which should mean I can afford to have an extra day or two off a month without finding myself in financial troubles. That is certainly a welcome prospect at the moment, because, as well as work being particularly manic of late, I seem to be finding myself less and less tolerant of the quagmire of fuckwittery that passes for conversation and opinion for the great majority of my colleagues. I've managed not to out myself for almost seven years now, but it seems to getting more difficult each day. The sooner I can escape from the benighted place, far the better.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

News, good(ish), bad and worse

Back to 'Domicile-ville'. That's what's in store for me after a couple of phone calls yesterday. In fact, back to the very room I first moved into in April 2011, albeit a room which is now en suite and a little bit smarter than its previous incarnation. Going back there wasn't my first choice, but given the timescale and the financial considerations, it's probably the most practicable option.
Moving to pastures (re)new(ed) obviously entails leaving where I am now, though, and the realities of that certainly reared up and bit me when I got in after the last of eight straight night shifts yesterday morning. I knew the landlord was planning to advertise the flat, but to field an e-mail from the estate agents at 8:45 that they had arranged two viewings for nine hours or so hence was far from welcome, given the backlog of cleaning I'd managed to accrue. It led to me having to spend several hours of one of my few and far between days off making the place look at least vaguely presentable, as well as leaving me with backache and virtually no energy.
All of that, though, pales into insignificance compared to what K sprang on me yesterday evening. We'd arranged to meet at my preferred relatively local Wetherspoons for something to eat after she'd finished work, which duly took place. K had drunk a fair amount of wine, and, whether that was significant or not, felt herself compelled to confess that she's spent several years struggling, intermittently, with an eating disorder that she's never told anyone about. Despite her adamantly stating it was nobody's fault but hers, as a parent, and a parent who loves her very much, it left me wracked with guilt, for not noticing (although K has never been underweight, and has always seemed to eat normally when I've cooked for her, back at home and since she moved to London, over the years), for all the things I might have done, or failed to do, as she's grown up, for not being the stereotypical 'normal' father she had every right to expect. We talked about the situation to some extent last night, but I was almost braindead with tiredness by that point, so further discussions about what she needs, how to move forward, will undoubtedly be required, sooner rather than later.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Beauty, but all too much truth

I'm on nights yet again, so not much to say in general beyond the work/sleep/work cycle - apart from this morning. I took a slightly circuitous route home to catch a bus, fairly local to us, that's being diverted this week due to road works by way of a road that doesn't normally have a bus service, and was thus new territory to me (yeah, anorak, I know!). Waiting for said bus in the bus station of the town one to the west of ours, my 'boy radar' caught a movement in the right corner of my field of vision. And yes, it was a boy - an utter delight, blond and lovely, too young, but aren't they all, with his mother, off on some early, by school holiday standards, expedition. He 'ghosted' away, onto a different bus route, after five minutes or so, leaving me with the depressingly familiar quagmire of 'never' in my head. I try to believe that 'one day my prince will come', but he never will, of course, in any remotely plausible circumstance. Nothing left but disillusion, and death. Great.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wild horses

The proverbial ones, of course, who wouldn't be able to drag me to something I saw advertised yesterday. The Evergreen Club ('For Over 60's', as the poster paranthetically added). I don't actually qualify yet, anyway, but it's only just over two and a half years until I will. What I expect to be doing at 60, assuming I don't keel over in the interim, is gigging with K, not sitting in a church hall with the cemetery queue. If I'm ever found in such a place, I give my full permission for anyone to have me humanely destroyed!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

End of an era

An overused cliché, I guess, but sometimes employed more justifiably than others. I've alluded a number of times to my passionate attachment to a particular sports club, of which I'm not just a fan, but a member, namely the St Kilda Football Club. And I was met, when I got home last night, with the news that a bona fide legend of the club had announced his retirement at the end of the current season. Nick Riewoldt has been a Sainter for the whole of this century, being no. 1 draft pick in 2000 and making his debut in 2001, becoming an integral part of the team almost straight away. He's subsequently become our longest serving captain and done pretty much everything doable in the sport - except winning a premiership, of course. We could, theoretically, set that omission right this year, albeit that it's a very, very long shot at this point, but either way, the almost unimaginable prospect of the Saints without 'Rooey' will become an actuality in 2018. Apologies to the no doubt great majority of my readers who haven't the slightest knowledge of or interest in Australian Rules Football, but for any of you who do, you'll understand what a big deal this is, especially for a St Kilda tragic like me.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B