Not going out

That has summed up the past two days of my daughter's visit - we've had a couple of very lazy days, hardly leaving my accommodation, and not leaving 'domicile-ville' at all. Not, I have to say, an entirely bad thing, because part of what I wanted to achieve this weekend was to recharge a little, and being able to do it in, for me, the most congenial of company, has helped considerably. I've added another pretty substantial chunk to my ever burgeoning story, too - I thought I might have reached an impasse this morning, but soon found a way to progress. Oddly enough, when we did finally drag ourselves into the outside world today, in mid-afternoon, to indulge in a late lunch/early tea in the local Wetherspoons, I saw a little blond cutie who was quite close to my mental picture of Xander, or, at least, how he might have looked at 9 or 10. Yet another example of the story taking over my life, it seems!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Tragic? Not in my book

I first heard on the 1:00 news this afternoon of the death of Margaret Thatcher. There quickly followed a stream of tributes, from both former allies and adversaries, 'a towering political figure', 'a great Briton', 'the greatest peacetime prime minister' amongst the hyperbole, and how her demise is a huge loss, a tragedy for the nation. Well, not as far as I'm concerned. There is no public figure, none at all, in my lifetime that I have loathed more than Thatcher, the vile petit bourgeois snob who detested the working class people from whom I came, effectively gave away billions and billions of pounds worth of national assets, most ultimately paid for by the taxes of those very working people she so despised, to her political friends and allies, destroyed whole industries, decimated communities, trashed the lives of families and individuals with her dogma. And who, on a personal level, I'm totally convinced, was completely culpable in the early death, at 59, of my father, an honest, hard-working man who had the misfortune to work in an industry, coal mining, which became the front line of Thatcher's class war, and who died, ultimately, from a heart attack brought on by stress engendered as a result of the 1984/1985 UK miners' strike. I'm not, by nature, a vindictive person, but I wouldn't shed a single tear if I'd heard that Thatcher died in the same kind of pain and suffering that my father did. My only regret, as far as that woman is concerned, is that she didn't die 35 years earlier, before getting her filthy hands on the levers of power, and causing more damage to this country than anyone else in the twentieth century, and beyond, as her legacy is still part of much modern day Conservativism, as with the current spate of more or less overt destruction of the welfare system and the NHS. 'We shall not see her like again'. Let's fucking hope not.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

How much?!

My daughter asked me last night how many words I'd written in my latest story up to now. I told her I hadn't a clue, although, as I've said before, I already knew it was my longest to date, and still well short of being finished. So I copied and pasted the text to my word processing program, to use the 'word count' tool there. To say that I was gobsmacked is a bit of an understatement - the figure that was thrown back at me was 43189! As I posted recently, I was aware that Xander and David were taking over my life, but the extent to which that is the case is well illustrated by that word count. There's a big difference between quantity and quality, I'm well aware of that, but it certainly seems that my little love story isn't so little anymore!
My daughter went off to an impromptu YouTuber 'gathering' in London for much of yesterday - she didn't find out about it until she saw a reference to it on Twitter at 10:00 yesterday morning, so her being up here with me was serendipitous, because it gave her the chance to catch up with some people she already knew, and to meet one or two more she'd only previously been in touch with online, so she was happy with her day. I just meandered, helped by the fact that I was feeling somewhat better than I had on Friday. That, in turn, had more than a little to do with the weather finally seeming to become a little milder, something which is forecast to continue over the weekend and into the beginning of next week - losing the cold air which has plagued us for weeks might finally allow my chest to recover to something closer to normal. I certainly hope so - I'm thoroughly fed up with feeling lousy all the time.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Hamstrung

The first day, or half day, of my daughter's visit, was a bit of a mixed bag. I met her as arranged at lunchtime yesterday, and we went off for something to eat in Camden, which is an area of London that appeals to her slightly 'bohemian' side. We then went on to do a bit of meandering - she's almost as fond of watching the world go by from the top deck of buses as I am - but, as the afternoon progressed, I began feeling pretty rotten again, culminating in the walk back from 'domicile-ville' station being a thoroughly tortuous affair, taking more than twice as long as it normally would. Apart from feeling lousy, it made me feel guilty as well - a lively 15 year old shouldn't be saddled with a run-down old ruin of a father, at the end of the day. She's still asleep at the moment, but we'll probably have another go at venturing into the big city later - I just hope I'm not such a millstone as I was yesterday.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Break time

Having finished my week of late shifts just under two hours ago, I'm now embarking on a six day long weekend, and a very welcome one it will be, as well. The aftermath of my recent chest infection - I still seem to be coughing half my life away, although things are slowly improving - has left me feeling thoroughly washed out, and in need of recharging my batteries, which hopefully will come about in the next few days. The best aspect of the break, though, is that my daughter will be spending it with me - I'm meeting her at Paddington at lunchtime tomorrow. This next six days will be the longest time we will have been together for almost a year, since the last full week off I spent in our former home in the middle of April last year. To say I'm looking forward to it is a considerable understatement.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sometimes I feel like screaming

Or crying. Not that I'm particularly having a week of 'song title post titles', but this one seemed appropriate. There are times when some of my work colleagues reduce me to almost inarticulate frustration. Yesterday evening was a case in point. There was discussion of, and hilarity over, some porn video someone had found online, which 'featured', if that's the right word, a woman having her head pushed into a toilet which was then flushed, during sex. These are the same people who, day after day, trot out 'gay' this and 'faggot' that, 'paedo' this, and 'kiddie-fiddler' that, and who would almost undoubtedly want to take me out into the car park and lynch me if my attractions came to light. Yet thoroughly vile, disrespectful treatment of women, even if it was in a 'staged' scenario, is, seemingly, not only acceptable, but humorous. Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to cover these sort of attitudes.
It wasn't all bad news, though - I had an e-mail from my friend, who was best man at my wedding, about meeting up in the near future, following on from my finally getting around to contacting him a few weeks back. He was working overseas at the time, but he's back in the UK now, and lives relatively nearby - a direct train journey from here, at least - so I'm hoping we can get together and catch up sometime soon.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Just what I needed

Or not, as the case may be. Two hours, and a little more, with a cute boy a handful of paces away from me. He's the son of one of my work colleagues, and came in to wait for his dad to finish his shift and travel home with him, after a day trip the boy had been on. It's not the first time I've seen him, either - he visited in similar circumstances just under a year ago, while my blog was in abeyance. He's 13, looks a little younger, is all boy, full of fun, and, while not stunningly good-looking - he's got a very unflattering short haircut that doesn't suit him at all at the moment, in contrast to the much more becoming boyish mop he sported last year - he's more than attractive enough to hold my attention almost to the point of being obvious. It's bad enough having to bite my tongue on a more or less daily basis in the face of the kneejerk garbage that some of my colleagues spout, without having a living, breathing landmine in the building, just so I can out myself inanely. To say I had mixed feelings when he left was an understatement - I could have looked at him all night, but not having him to look at perhaps saved me from myself. The 'joys' of being a boylover. Or something.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B