My Mum died a few years back and Elaine, my psychotic sister took it upon herself one day to get my Mums ashes and scatter them across the beach in Torquay we used to go when we were kids. It must have been a really lovely thing for her to do but she never told me, so I wasn’t there.
My Father called me once after my Mum died. He told me that my Mum had died. Actually, I can’t remember if he called or not. I may have made that up thinking that he was probably really nice and called me to be close to his family. I do know that they were keeping my Mum alive so that I could go and see her in Plymouth but by the time I got anywhere near Plymouth, they’d switched her off. It was probably dinner time and they couldn’t wait for me.
Later I found out that they’d struggled really hard to call me, to confide in their decision to switch her off early because it was dinner time but the mobile phone that I have on me all the time was switched off. They don’t know that I know they didn’t call me. They made that up. When people call me and I don’t answer or if the phone was off (like when it’s new in the box, in the shop!), I get an urgent SMS message telling me that someone had tried to call me. Nobody called that day. My sister, the sister that was closest to my Mum and the one that we call psycho, was very warm to me after my Mum died. She told me that she’d look after me and that she’d find a nice piece of jewellery of my Mother’s so that I could have something of my Mum’s (I guess so that I’d never forget her kindness and warmth) but she forgot to give me anything so I don’t remember.
My relationship with my Dad was always strained. A miserable whiskey drinking bully if there ever was one. I thought I would try again with him and give him a second chance, now that he had a new lady, a few weeks after Mum had died. I took my own family to stay with them and we had a lovely weekend. Then psycho discovered this and sent me an email full of swearing and shouting. She told me that I didn’t care about her.
My Father had been giving psycho’s children a monthly allowance for their university schooling budget and I thought it would be a good idea to discuss how this arrangement might fit with my children. We had taken them out to dinner, this time to the Grand Hotel in Torquay and I broached the subject after a couple of bottles of expensive red wine. He wasn’t pleased that I had discussed this with him. He told me that the subject hadn’t crossed his mind and that he’d have to think about it.
Well, that was two years ago and the telephone hasn’t rung and no letters have arrived. He must still be thinking about it. Maybe I shouldn’t ask awkward questions. Actually, we haven’t talked at all in that time, so he must be thinking really hard about that one.
As a small boy, I had a real mummy, just like everyone else’s except mine was better. She was pretty, she smoked long cigarettes and everyone loved her. She was certainly very clever even when she shouted at me. Some days she would hold me and make me feel all loved and I would just gaze at her in wonderment that I was so lucky to have the best mummy in the world. Other days she smacked me across my head, making me deaf for a moment.
But we would spend time together, just her and I. She was everything to me. When I was sent to boarding school, I missed her so much. I remember writing to her, tears rolling down my face on to the writing paper, pleading to come home and that I missed her so much. She told me that boarding school was a privilege and ten year olds like me should love it. If I was strong and grown up then I’d enjoy the school.
Once in a while, she would come and visit to take me home for a long weekend or holiday. I would count down the days. Each night, I would bore my dorm mates about my Mum and how she would be coming to see me soon. Finally, on the day in question, I would be frantic, waiting by the road, sometimes soaking wet in the rain and I wouldn’t go inside in case she thought I wasn’t happy to see her. I would watch every car in case it was my Mum. Eventually, I would see the car, with my very own Mum driving it. I would start waving frantically, my heart exploding out my chest. I would be so very excited to see her. I knew she would be so happy to see me too but often she was in a rush and held back her love courageously so that I would have to catch my breath and wait for the love to come out later – or even another day. Or never.
Over time, I realised that the love that she gave to me when I was a little boy, and the love that I gave to her when I was a child had all gone. I didn’t know where it went. It was dead. It all magic’d away. It never came back and I tried so hard, even shouting like she did, but it didn’t work.
Now it’s like a dream. It’s like it happened in a previous life. I can’t believe that once I really did have a wonderful Mum who would hold me, laugh with me and tell me that I was beautiful. But she stopped doing those things and it all went away. I was alone. All the love gone. She had no idea.
And then I never had a Mum.
Post Script
The woman who claimed to be my Mother, financially disowned me and my elder sister by writing us out of her will. Actually, that’s a technicality, we were left 5% each. She never told us though and we carried on with our fake relationships until the day she died. The man claiming to be my Father together with Psycho never told me about the will. My wife wrote to the probate office only recently and paid for a copy of the will because as she put it, she “smelled a rat”. In any case, the part of the Will that demonstrates her “love” for me wasn’t executed because the man claiming to be my Father, outlived her and is apparently still alive. 70% would have been inherited by Psycho (for accuracy, see note at the bottom of page), who had spent the previous 50 years of her life plotting and scheming against her siblings. A Cuckoo.
So. Help me put some love back into the world. Hug your spouse, hug your friends and hug your lovely children.
Callum xx
NB: The Will split the estate 50% to Psycho and 10% each to her two children (70%). My elder sister and I would have inherited 5% each with the remainder of the estate being split amongst the remaining Grandchildren at 5% each.
April 22nd, 2009
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- Life is not fair - get used to it.
- The world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
- You will NOT make 60k a year in your first job - and you won’t be a vice-president with a laptops, secretary and a car phone until you earn both.
- If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss
- Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
- If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault , so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
- Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
- Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
- Life is not divided into holidays. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
- Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
April 16th, 2009
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With the kids having a couple of weeks off, we thought up a new trip and ventured from Calcutts to Stratford. We didn’t make it all the way back and have dropped the boat down by Knowle locks for a few days whilst I work out when I’m going to take it “home”.
The weather was pretty kind to us, managing to rain mostly at night. When the sun did come out, we had fluffy white clouds and large gaps of blue sky. A very English weather for a very English part of the countryside. It must have been relatively sunny since I’ve clearly caught the sun on my face. I have a healthy glow without the radiation treatment that they get “down under” when exposing bare skin to sunshine.
We managed to squeeze in three main meals at three different well-known canal pubs in the first three days of the tip. All come recommended; The Waterman at the top of the Hatton Flight, the Boot at Lapworth and ther Fleur de Lys at Lowsonford. Actually, it all gets mixed up here because one day I managed to squeeze in 6 pints of Guiness spread across two pubs and for the life of me, I can’t remember which one and which day! Yes, I remember now.. the Boot for lunch and the Fleur de Lys for dinner. Thirsty work being a narrowboat driver. We were also lucky to meet Mike and Jackie again on the Narrowboat Wordsworth. A cracking couple and we love them to bits!
Although this trip is full of locks and I counted nearly 75 just to get there, it didn’t seem too bad, although Wendy’s elbow seems to flare up on the really big days. Stratford locks are tough for little ones too. You would expect them to be soft like the Oxford but someone forgot to grease the lot for the last 100 years. I was hauled off a number of times to lend a hand and my woolly mammoth strength to the padddles - or the gates. However a very pleasant journey all the same. I did find the Stratford canal locks tighter than the Oxford too. They are certainly a whisker smaller and a couple of times, I nearly got stuck. I’m in need of a bit of paint now since the rubbing strakes are down to Jonathon Wilson’s bare steel (sorry Pal!).
We had one incident with the last lock gate on the last lock on the Stratford. The bloody gate wouldn’t close completely. I sat there in the boat waiting for Wendy to open the gate and nothing. I shouted across the pound what was the problem. She just said it filling slowly. Clearly there was an issue though since it just wouldn’t fill and when I decided to pull over, I was grounding - an indication that we’d nearly emptied the damned pound! A good old-fashioned leap from me and I was on dry land, investigating the issue. Yes, the last lock gate was jammed open and water was pouring through it. We’d never be able to fill the lock, it was like trying to run a bath with the plug out. A bystander came up with the idea of flushing the lock. In other words, try and fill it but with the front gate wide open for a few seconds. That might shift what ever it was. We tried this and then I realised out boat was worse off, sitting at an angle dry land almost, with the keel exposed - I could even see the propeller!
After a bit of hydromatics (new word, I just made it up!), we agreed to call British Waterways and they turned up fairly rapidly to see what they could do. A longer wait and mega-man Ian turns up. Blimey, he’s a strapping bloke this Ian! Massive. He ends up in the drink with his dry suit on and finds a log jamming the gate. Eventually we’re on our way again.
So, after three days in Stratford, moored next to Mike and Jackie - and having dinner with Marcus and Tracey and the following night with John and Lutty, we untied and went on our way. However not only had my mascot duck been kidnapped (which is rather funny and I got it back) we had to endure a bloody racket from some Univerity students who had drunk far too much. They were still dancing on the roof at 4:30am in the morning. One even went to sleep up there. We followed them home for a while back up the lock system. They were still partying!
Just before leaving on Sunday, we managed to grab a quick pump-out, fill with water and cruised up the Avon for 20 minutes. Finally at about 2:00pm, we made our way through the first dozen or so locks, leaving us with one big push on Easter Monday where we managed to get all the way to Knowle locks.
In terms of engineering issues this trip, the bloody toilet seems to get stuck on every second flush or so. I’ve no idea why. I did find some wire shoved up the kitchen sink drain-away pipe, there was some plastic bag ties pushed hard up the pipe. I’m wondering if the breather pipe for the black water system might have been tampered with too which means that maybe the tank gets put under pressure and it doesn’t want to accept any more debris until the system has equalised. I have just thought that first flush of the day normally works. I think I’m on to something here. I’ll work out a way of checking this.
There’s still an odour from the master bedroom. This is where we had the leak last year. It dried out but still causes this stale smell. I wonder how long it will keep up?
I want a battery management information system. I have little idea about power consumption because I don’t have a power meter. Victron Energy do a really cool meter called a BMV-600 with is just ideal. It has a programable relay so there’s some interesting thoughts working in my head about starting the engine automatically if the house batteries start to run dry. Watch this space.
Pictures: http://www.m0mcx.co.uk/gallery/index.php?/category/173
Cheers for now,
Callum (Wendy and the kids).
April 15th, 2009
Posted by
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I was looking through my search logs a minute ago. These logs are the ones generated by my webserver in response to connections that Google makes with a user hits this site after making a search. Some of the searches were hilarious, not just will my antenna work better in a valley, but another one asked if it was cold in the winter. No to the first and Yes to the second!
For fun, here’s the top 500 searches:
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April 14th, 2009
Posted by
callum |
QRO |
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