Tag: comfort

What a beautiful noise..

Just as Neil Diamond serenaded us in 1976 in the middle of a summer heatwave, it was the first song that came to my head when I awoke around 06:30 this morning.

A nice amount of water above us

It was raining. The UK, or at least our little bit of it up here in the East Midlands has been under heatwave conditions for a few weeks now. We haven’t seen a good rainfall for a couple of months now, only the occasional spot of rain, but not sufficient to fill a hollow tooth….of a mouse.

It has been proper raining today, and it reminds me that in one of the upper gutter systems i have a joint that needs attention as it leaks a constant metronomic amount of water on to the downstairs conservatory roof, giving a constant, tap, tap, tap that is somewhat comforting to listen to. My water collection butts around the house are all nicely filling as a result with good fresh water that the plants and baskets love and crave.

It’s a beautiful sound.

I know there are parts of the world that probably only hear or feel this kind of weather on very rare occasions, and for those people, when it does finally arrive it must be super special and spectacular.

But they manage.

Where as here in the Uk or any other part of the so called developed western world, a week without rain and the whole nation starts to panic, water companies that are ripping us off with their inflated prices are telling us to cut down, and then the nanny state kicks in with its list of things you must and mustn’t do. It’s crazy, we’re in a crazy world.

But my part of that world just lays here quite content, I have my metronomic drip to comfort me, I have a cup of tea beside me, and my whole world lays beside me in a comfortable and cool slumber, totally unaware of the weather situation developing around us. She will be happy when she awakes. The plants are happy, the birds are content and for a brief moment the world is good.

Then the weather report comes up saying we are in for another heatwave next week. Oh well, that didn’t last long did it. A brief reprieve from the intense heat was nice, but I can’t complain at seeing the sun, as to be honest that will soon be gone and we will go through a long autumn and winter all praying for its swift return. We can’t have it all, can we?

But it is an absolutely beautiful noise isn’t it?

Have a super day, enjoy the rain, sun or whatever you have in your region. Just stay safe.

The formation of the Universe

What historical event fascinates you the most?

It’s one that’s going to annoy a number of people on both sides of the spectrum.

The formation of the Universe.

My upbringing was in the Church of England so I have a Christian upbringing. I spent the first 16 years of my life going to Sunday school and then on my 16th I was given the choice to carry on going or to stop. I chose to stop. We were told throughout that the Lord built the world in six days and rested on the seventh. And I believed this.

But in school the teachers were telling us about the Big Bang, the science around it was amazing, mesmerising, there was now another choice. It was confusing. Creation or Evolution?

Now I don’t class myself as a religious person, however I do find comfort within my beliefs. I don’t force my beliefs on anyone, it is a highly personal aspect of my life and that’s how it will stay.

However the evolutionary route fascinates me and when I was younger certainly created a conflict of interest. I would question theories privately as who could I talk to about it? It’s not the sort of question you discuss with friends as a youngster, they’d think you were crackers!

No, I’ve developed my own understanding and it’s a healthy mix of the both. Purely because I’m not fully able to just ditch my entire upbringing, and as I previously stated i do find comfort in my faith. But I am always fascinated by the science and discussion regarding evolution of everything on this planet and from within our solar system.

I’m sorry it’s a bit long winded and I could have easily just said “ The Universe” and the question would have been easily answered. But it’s a bit more complex in my eyes. Sometimes our recent history puts blinkers over our eyes and makes us ignorant to the facts or truth.

But who knows the truth? I guess we will never ever know.

That’s kind of exciting in my eyes.

Alfs memorial shelf

I know I go on about him and I’m not ashamed of talking about him. He was a massive part of our life, and if you have never experienced the unconditional love of a pet I suggest you get one, you are missing out.

Alf, and footprint. Now complete with photo.

Today we needed one final picture to go into the frame that was supplied by the vet with his footprint made into a cast, taken when he passed away.

We now have these items on a shelf in a bookcase in the corner of the room. That’s now Alf’s shelf and it’s all about him.

Alf’s shelf

We come here and speak to him, we wish him good morning and good night and regularly tell him what a good boy he is. We cry here, I’m doing it now, how does such a beautiful, peaceful loving creature get taken away, why do we have to suffer grief.

That’s life I suppose. We were given a gift when he came into our care, and we absolutely cherished that opportunity we were given. But we want more. And we can’t have it. You can truly have too much of a good thing, a sizeable piece of us disappeared when Alf passed.

I know at the beginning I said if you have never experienced the unconditional love of a pet then get one. I add a caveat to that, just be prepared to have your heart and feelings ripped into a million pieces when they leave you.

If you are not prepared or can’t do it, then don’t. You are not ready yet.

I’m not soft, I’m free with my feelings, I can be tough when I have to be, and believe me, cross me or my family and you’d know. But here we have 5 kilos of fluff that just stole our hearts.

Grief is a bastard. But it’s one of those feelings in life you sign up to as part of the bargain of existence.

Peace to you all.

A couple of pictures of our dogs

Again today we’ve been going through a whole raft of photos and we’ve chosen this one to sit alongside Alfie’s ashes. It’s a lovely photo of him with his head on the first stair, looking up at us getting ready as we’d told him he was about to go “Walkies” it sums him up perfectly. Beautiful boy 🥰

Alfie’s ashes – new picture

The second one we received as an anniversary present from my sister in Lancashire. It’s a lovely hand drawn pencil picture by a talented young lady of all our three boys. Bottom Left is Muffin who we had at the start of our marriage 33 years ago, bottom right is Digger who was next, and on the top with his trademark cocked head is our little Alfie. This is the only picture my wife wants on the wall of the boys as it is the three of them together.

The three boys. Muffs, Digs and Alf

What memories we have, and thousands of pictures to look back on and smile. We were so privileged to be gifted these three wonderful little souls. We have been so fortunate and lucky.

Smile today, make someone’s day.

In silence

How do you celebrate holidays?

Not sure what’s exactly meant by celebrating holidays but I’ll have a crack at it. Working the hours I do pretty much every day I get off is celebrated just like a holiday because those days are few and far between. They are very much days that are treasured and always spent with my wife and family.

If you mean public holidays such as “Bank Holidays” they are nothing special and to be honest I pretty much work every single one of them so no celebration there.

If you mean annual holidays then I still don’t quite get what is meant by celebrating them? Do you imagine that everyone is a crackpot dancing a jig and running around like a banshee just because they are on holiday.

I imagine just like me, most people celebrate in silence, just happy that they’ve made it to a holiday and to be in the company of those they love. And no more work for that period of time.

Have a super day.

Quiet everyone

What’s your favorite word?

It probably sounds corny, and to be honest it is quite difficult to sideline a single word that is a favourite of all those that are used on a daily basis.

But for me it would be the word “Quiet”

It’s the one thing I like the most, it’s the one thing I seek the most and at the same time it’s the one thing that seems to be most difficult for me to find. It’s a strange all encompassing word.

My wife is a polar opposite, she loves hustle and bustle and finds “Quiet” difficult to handle but we do find a happy medium.

Yes, I’m the guy that would love that house in the middle of nowhere with no neighbours or main roads for miles.

Silence is golden they say, for me it’s an achievement to find it, keep it and treasure it.

It’s a lovely word “Quiet”

Peace to you all and please try to have a happy stress free day.

It’s my journal

Why do you blog?

During my working life I have so far experienced, 17 traumatic suicides on the railway. I am more often than not the first person on site and have to make access to the site, safe for all the emergency personnel about to arrive en masse. I have seen things no one should ever expect to witness. And I sincerely hope you never do.

For this reason, I have had health issues mainly around PTSD that I was diagnosed as having just two years ago, after a young lad ended his life on my shift. That one affected me, though i often go into self denial that this was the cause. Though in all seriousness it was probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

I used to journal as a result. It wasn’t a private journal, I used to have it beside the bed and actively encourage my wife to read it. At the time I was hiding a lot of my feelings from my wife, I was the typical bloke that wouldn’t talk, however I was storing this all inside and even I could see this was heading straight towards becoming the perfect storm. I’m glad I did that as it helped her and it also helped me to prompt conversation and off load some of that weight from my shoulders.

Blogging became the natural progression from the journal. The family now have links to this blog and they all check in on a regular basis to see what I am doing. I include all the hobby stuff and it is now more of a website than a blog site.

I sit here typing as I am now at 4 in the morning and the wife will turn to me and say, “Are you doing your blog?” And I will say yes. She knows that this is my way of healing some scars by just offloading the excess baggage that life supplies sometimes. And do you know what? It works for me. I don’t do it for followers as that’s not what I’m about. To be honest it wouldn’t bother me if not a single person read my site, for me I have a history at my fingertips where I can check my progress. I have bad days, I have days where I do nothing but whinge, but I can now see why these things happen and that’s all down to this blog.

That’s why I blog, this last month has been awful as my constant companion, Alf, our dog, another who would just sit and listen to me wagging his little tail passed away and it has just ripped the hearts out of my wife and I. See his pictures here: Alfie. All hobbies and interests have disappeared as we have just entered that, “Can’t be arsed” stage of grief. We will come to terms with it in time, and again this is where the blog helps.

Hopefully people will understand this. I’m just a guy who is suffering but I have found a way to let off that steam, accumulated as a result of other peoples desperate actions.

It’s tough, but I won’t let the demons win. It is a daily battle that I doubt I will win in the long run but hopefully I can put it aside for a good while longer.

I really wish for peace for you all.

Talk,

Blog,

It really helps.

A day of necessary chores

Anyone who’s picked up on these posts of mine of recent days will know that we lost a very important member of our family on Friday just gone. Our dog Alfie went to sleep after suffering a number of ailments over the past years, culminating in a steep decline in his quality of life in the last couple of months.

It’s a tough and harrowing decision to make, bringing an end to a life that has brought nothing but intense joy and happiness to yours for the last 11yrs and 3 months.

But we had to do it, he couldn’t suffer anymore.

The hole that opened up in our family that day was immense. We stopped eating, our diet has been tears and cuddles and just constantly comforting each other. Along with this now is a list of chores that have to be done, like it or not his stuff has to be sorted, what do we keep? What do we donate? What do we dispose of?

Me, I want to keep it all but I have to be realistic, we don’t want to delete him from our memories as that will never happen, we don’t want to remove his presence from our home as it was his as well as ours. However there are unfortunate animals out there that would greatly benefit from Alf’s legacy and that’s what today is about.

Firstly we return to the vets, we have cards and gifts for the staff there who have all been super towards our little lad, we’re not looking forward to this but it has to be done, we have to settle his account as we left there Friday broken and gibbering wrecks.

Secondly we head to the Local dogs trust homing centre where we can donate Towels, Bedding and an elderly dog stroller

Thirdly we will go to the local hospice shop where we can donate other items, that again will help this wonderful charity.

It’s going to be hard, the house is going to be a little emptier today. But his legacy will be that he is helping others both canine and human, and isn’t that a wonderful thing.

I’m sure I will write a lot more about him on here and I’m not apologetic for that at all. My wife and I are still very raw about his passing and we will breakdown at a moments notice, however we are supporting each other, and doing what we can to ease the pain, and not forget him. Walks and talks are now our priority, it helps.

It’s amazing how, you can fall so madly in love with an animal, another species. Life really is wonderful and heartbreaking in equal measures.

Peace to you all

That’s all folks

List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.

  • You will be born
  • You will live a life
  • You will be taxed for everything
  • You will make good choices
  • You will make bad decisions
  • You will experience deep joy
  • You will experience excruciating pain
  • You will grieve
  • You will love
  • You will die

You choose your direction in life. Make it good.

Peace to all.

Neither, I believe

Are you seeking security or adventure?

I have security in particular aspects. My job and my relationship being the main ones.

Adventure, nah I’ve done all of that, I’ve got numerous tee shirts to prove it.

For me it’s now comfort. I have it in my relationship but not my job. I have itchy feet in that aspect.

When I’m in a position to vacate this role I would have then found the comfort I seek.

It will come.

Patience young man….

Retirement beckons