» Beautiful Moments, Part Two

Take That and an old lady
It was the motherships 70th birthday last year.
She loves Take That. She is also the kindest most thoughtful, sweet, soft, old lady you could ever meet.
I have to say I quite like them too but never that much I would want to go see them.
Then 'The Circus' tour was announced. I decided to get her a ticket a whole 10 months in advance.
This meant I could give her the ticket for Christmas and then plan to go see them the following June.
She opened her present on Christmas morning, put her hand to her mouth, and tears filled her eyes. I nearly wept, she was SO excited. It became her entire focus for the next few months.
Her birthday suddenly came upon us, so she came to Bristol and we drove over to Cardiff. She had never been to a 'big' concert before so had no idea what to expect. The town was buzzing! packed full of people all heading to the stadium for the big event.
Outside she saw the tour buses and was speechless at the enormity of it all.
I took her picture outside the stadium, grinning, holding onto her ticket like she was Charlie and her ticket was golden.
We wandered in. I have been there before but she had never been anywhere bigger than the Liverpool empire so the scale, the height, the atmosphere freaked her right out!
We found our seats right up high, and sat waiting. She was like a kid. A 70 year old lovely old lady with a face of a child.
Then they came on. A huge cavalcade of balloons headed out into the middle of the stadium. Then, they appeared and started to sing 'Greatest day'. 'tonight this could be, the greatest night of our lives...'...I looked over at this pink, kind soft old lady and she had tears in her eyes. I was filled with such a love for her at that moment I thought my heart would burst.
All the way through she was enthralled, laughing, speechless...
Then the final song came on. They did the song from Stardust 'Rule the world'.
Oh I'm filling up now just thinking about it.
As they finished I looked at her and she was crying. Hands on her face, trying to hold it in. But she was crying. It took every ounce of strength in my body not to collapse in floods of tears at how happy she was. I gave her a big hug and told her how much I loved her.

Then it was all over and we made our merry way home through the crowds.

She sent me a card the next week saying thank you for the best night of her life.
I know it was too.
If I never have a beautiful moment again I will always be so glad I did that for her. She is now starting to fade, her health is deteriorating, but I know we will always have that magical night where she experienced the wonder of cheesy pop stars who made her cry with happiness.

What more could you ask?
(Fri 6th Aug 2010, 1:45, More)

» Family Feuds

Caught short
My cousin and aunty now wont speak to me after disgracing myself at my posh cousins 18th birthday party...
They lived in a big house, and arranged a big marquee in the back for dancing and drinking celebrations. Packed full of kids and family...but stupidly only one toilet...upstairs next to the bathroom.
Of course after a few hours on the piss there is a massive line waiting. I was bursting so I dragged my then boyfriend into the bathroom..told him to watch the door...pulled up my dress climbed into the bath and started to pee over the plug hole....
At that point posh aunty starts banging on the door..'whats going on in there? What are you doing?'
I'm begging to said boyfriend...'don't open it, let me pull me knickers up first..hang on hang on'
I Climb out the bath and open the door....
She of course is furious we have clearly been having mad rampant sex in her bathroom......why else would I have to pull my knickers up?
How could I tell her ACTUALLY Aunty I was pissing in your bath...
I decided to take the 'yes we were fucking over the sink' option and promptly left...taking a full bottle of champagne with us...
(Fri 13th Nov 2009, 15:22, More)

» Getting Old

I think I am back to front again
I got up the duff when I was 18, so all that time when my friends were going off traveling and going to Uni and clubbing or going to festivals till they chewed off their own eye lids, I stayed at home and quietly got on with bringing up mini-me and working and doing bits of studying.
I felt bloody old then.
He is 21 now and over the last few years, I have become self employed after going through Uni finally, although not having the same experience as the youngsters in my class. I am now free to do what I want, while all those same friends who looked on me in pity now have dark rings round their eyes, and are frazzled from the lack of sleep, school holidays and endless rounds of fucking face painting.
They wonder where their life has gone and I know THEY now feel old.
Having him so young means I influenced his taste in music, film, comedy, books to the point that he now influences me. I was only young myself of course and still SO into stuff.
We have been to gigs, festivals, comedy clubs, talks all kinds of things together. Some from his suggestion, some from mine.
I get to still spend time in dingy gig venues, surrounded by kids, while I watch HIM play, very fondly remembering being 8 months pregnant and being sat, protecting my big bump at the side of the stage while watching bands like Fugazi.
My 41st birthday was a few weeks ago and he of course came the party along with a gang of his mates and I think I outlasted them all. But yes the recovery takes a hell of a lot longer.
Not that I advocate having kids that young, it wasn't easy but I am now getting to do what I should have been doing years ago.
I do sometimes catch myself wondering how the hell I ended up with such a grown man in my life, and I don't feel especially fit or healthy or really much different to 20 years ago. I don't own a house, I don't have a pension or anything sensible like that, having done much of it on my own.
So those of you feeling all young because you don't have kids, I feel young because I do.
But I do know that living life back to front has been an odd experience, and continues to be, but I don't think I would want it any other way.
(Thu 7th Jun 2012, 22:58, More)

» Winging It

I will get found out one day!
I wing it every day at work.
I don't mean to. I try really hard not to, but I have to.
As some of you know I am a British Sign Language (BSL) Interpreter.
Everyday I go into new situations with new people who use BSL or English in new and different ways with their own idiosyncrasy or vocabulary and I have to just try and keep up. I do love my job even though it's hard in any number of ways..
It can be with someone with learning difficulties, someone being told they are dying, a lecture on the historical relevance of the Quaker movement or how someone is going to divorce their partner and take their children and all their worldly goods.
And almost everyday I leave work going 'Fuuuuuuuuck' as I am not sure I have done justice to the language and communication that has occurred.
Thing is, I do get asked back. I have regular clients who have become friends. I know people respect me in my work and would try and book me before many others in my situation.
I know deep down I am great at what I do...but that feeling of FUCK won't go away.
However, every day, every minute I am wracked with insecurity about my own skills. I think I am a terrible interpreter, everyone else is better than me. I think it comes with the territory. We are constantly monitoring our own performance, and so we should be. Who wants someone who is going to tell a surgeon to cut off the wrong leg? Who wants to go to jail if I sign one wrong thing? Who wants to lose their kids due to my ineptitude?
Any second now someone is going to point at me and go 'YOU CAN'T DO YOUR JOB YOU ARE A CHARLATAN'
I won't be surprised, I am just waiting for it.
And I am going to go 'yeah, thank god, it only took you 12 years to realise, now I am free to fuck off and fuck up something else in life'
(Tue 2nd Apr 2013, 23:43, More)

» More Pet Stories

So, after my mum killed my cat
She finally relented through guilt to let me have a budgie.
My nan always had budgies. The kind that sat on her shoulder tweeting 'who's a pretty boy then', swinging off the bridge of her glasses and turning the cards over for her while playing patience, sat at the dining room table.
I was so excited. I knew I had to get a young male as they are the best talkers.
Charlie finally came into my life and I adored him. I got him all the best food, and an ace big cage and a bath and treats and sat by him talking to him for months.
Eventually it dawned on me that he really didn't want to talk. No fucking way. Stubborn bastard.
What he really wanted to do was take my eyes out when he was let free for a fly around. So much so I had to run out of the room after opening the cage as he would viciously dive bomb me, if he caught me he would peck at my face and grab my hair while squawking blue murder at me.
Only after he would return to his cage could I come back into the room.
Any attempt to change his food, water, stroke him, put in a millet spray would be met with his blue fucking feathered Velociraptor impression as he tried to take apart my hand peck by peck.
I did really try to make friends though, he broke my heart.
Bastard miserable budgie sat hunched on his perch with his cold dead eyes, silently mocking me while making himself laugh in his little budgie mirror.
Birds like that have a usual life span of 5-10 years, unless they are happy and healthy and this fucker was clearly not happy. I figured he would be flying down to bad bird hell after a while.
15 years later.
15 FUCKING YEARS LATER the vet insisted on putting him down.
Only because his claws had become so deformed through bitterness and hatred that he couldn't hold onto his perch anymore, he clung on till the very end just to spite me I am sure of it.
(Mon 4th Feb 2013, 22:42, More)