Chippy tea - In the name of Thiago - Day 313

 

Hoorah, it's the fucking weekend. Time to take stock, maybe take a walk and be kind to myself as my guv'nor at work was saying I should be. I'm not going to look back at the week that has just passed because well it's done and anyway I've done enough reflection for one week. And because it was utter shit. Anyways, like I said that's quite enough reflection for the time being.

Friday night does mean chippy tea though, (please excuse my very northern sounding expression but this is without doubt a phrase that has stuck), which is without doubt reason to celebrate. And there's only one place I'll ever go for that nowadays - the Dancing Octopus where the lovely ladies of Becky, Gemma, Tash and Jill always look after me.

As well as getting some nosebag tonight, I'd also planned to pick up the collection pots. Becky bless her, talked me out of it. Just that evening they'd had someone pop some pennies in the pot and it seems stupid to take something away that's raising important pennies for the two NHS hospitals that are benefiting from my efforts. I'll give it another couple of weeks and I'll head down there with a new poster tomorrow so that people can pop their names on. It's not that a poster is particularly needed but it is another useful visual prompt. It certainly won't hurt, put it that way. 

That then takes me up to the anniversary of the day we lost our little man. I'm really dreading that day coming round but to avoid facing it would be an insult to the legacy of my little hero, so whatever fucking pain it causes me, it's got to be done. I shall try to embrace it and then probably cry for most of the day.

There's rarely a day that goes by where that doesn't happen though to be honest. There was a lady from work today, who has a a little lad who's about six months younger than what Thiago would be now. It was just too much for me to see him popping up on the video call. I know I have to get used to seeing things like that but fuck me it don't 'arf feel shit.

Everyone else is cooing over the little fella - and he is a very handsome little lad - while I can't bear to look. Fucking hell eh? Will that change in time - I bloody hope so!

Back to happier things. I've been smashing this bad boy down tonight like it's going out of fashion, which I think is exactly what did happen to dandelion and burdock at some point back in the day. Zodiac do provide exceptionally poor soft drinks but you can't go wrong with this stuff. Oooooh lovely.

A most unusual thing happened this morning. I had a phone call with my Dad, which didn't end with me wanting to smash my head repeatedly into a wall, though for balance I should point out that he's coming over tomorrow at 10am, so there's still plenty of scope for the expected pain in the morning.

He had a phone call from a nurse at his local surgery to talk through his recent blood test results yesterday and as anticipated, it wasn't great news. He had a warning fired across the bows about two months ago where they'd written to him with suggestions of some actions he might want to take to improve his health. And what did he do? Tore the letter up, threw it out and laughed at the fact that he'd - in his eyes - got away with it. So today, he was feeling very sorry for himself when I asked him how he was. I didn't even have it in me to take the piss out of him. I'm clearly losing my touch.

 

This little pebble was a gift from my friend Mark when he came down to the house on the Wednesday of the last week of my 350 mile fundraising walk. I think, though I haven't asked him, that it was meant to be a simple point of encouragement to get me through the last three days of the walk. Now I see it as something that I can do keep my mental health in a more positive place going forward. Whichever it is, it helps. That's enough.

I enjoyed my walk with Jared last night. Jared is my tennis playing mate and used to manage Inspired's account when I was a director at the video production company from 2006-2014. Crikes, that's a long time ago now. To think that in another three years - if I stick it out - I'll have given the same amount of time to being a public servant that I did to something that was my life and passion for almost a decade. How life changes. But that's ok. The one thing I have much more of now than I ever did then, is good quality time with my girls. No little man of course now, but time with the people that I have left that matter most. That's worth an awful lot. I hope you get to spend time with those that matter most to you this weekend as well folks. Take care one and all.