Death By Teapot – The Answer

Ok, so a few months ago I wrote my first ever comedy murder mystery story and it was well received actually. I was chuffed with it at any rate. But what I didn’t reveal in the story was the identity of the culprit. I mentioned that the police arrested the wrong person but left it for you, the reader, to work out who really bludgeoned Mrs Baggley to death with a heavy earthenware teapot.

So here is the answer to the mystery…

If you recall, the bulk of the story took place at the PCC meeting in the church. There were five people at the meeting – the vicar, Mrs Baggley herself, Mrs Windebank, Mrs Wenlock and Mrs Dunwoody.

Well, barring the deceased (it wasn’t suicide: one does not commit suicide by bashing one’s own head in with a teapot) that leaves four people who all had a motive.

The Vicar – Mrs Baggley had threatened to report the vicar to the bishop over things that were said at the meeting.
Mrs Windebank had a motive after Mrs Baggley bluntly insulted her French ancestry.
Mrs Wenlock was accused by Mrs Baggley of being a sex maniac; not something that a PCC member would want bandied about.
Mrs Dunwoody’s mother was exposed as a drunk by Mrs Baggley. She was most upset about this.

There are other factors to consider as well.

Mrs Baggley was killed by a violent blow to the head from a heavy earthenware teapot. During the meeting Mrs Windebank had spoken of such a teapot as the ideal replacement for the current one and had passionately exclaimed that she would “buy the bloody thing myself.”
Mrs Dunwoody and Mrs Wenlock both expressed their dislike for Mrs Baggley. Mrs Wenlock said she would “swing for her myself” and Mrs Dunwoody went as far as saying she wished Mrs Baggley were dead.
The vicar had said he would reimburse Mrs Windebank himself for the teapot. Could it have been that he did so the night before the murder and taken the pot with him?

So what do you think? Have you worked out which of them committed this dastardly deed?

Which of the four was responsible for Mrs Baggley’s untimely demise?

…

Well actually none of them were.

…

If you recall there was a sixth person in the church at the time – Eric the organist.

Think back now:

Eric was a devoted follower of not just the church but the vicar also and was prepared to do anything for the good of both.
He’d recently had a new hearing aid, which whilst not helping his organ playing any, did mean that he overhead every part of the PCC conversation and Mrs Baggley’s threat to the vicar.
He also heard Mrs Windebank mention the earthenware teapot and her impassioned declaration of buying it.
When the vicar left the church, Eric was playing the hymn Nearer My God To Thee. A clear portent of what was about to befall Mrs Baggley who was soon to be a lot nearer to God.
Finally, Eric was known as a kind and gentle individual. Who would suspect him of doing it?

So there you have it.

Eric the organist finished his practice session in the church, he then went into town, purchased an earthenware teapot, hid in the bushes in the churchyard on Sunday morning and when Mrs Baggley went to unlock the church he crept up behind her and brained her with the pot thus speeding up her entry into the next world.

Did you get it right? Did the detective in you suss out that it was Eric? If not, who did you suspect and why?

…

I’m currently working on another comedy murder mystery short story where you will have another chance to play Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple.

Watch this space.

The Power Of A Chat

The amazing and wonderful woman I am proud to share my life with (Ange) has been having some reflexology sessions as part of her recovery treatment from breast cancer. I must confess that I don’t know an awful lot about reflexology and may have perhaps dismissed it in the past as quack medicine. But minds can change and mine certainly has towards reflexology. If it helps the woman I adore then lets crack on with it.

The reflexology session lasts about an hour and so whilst Ange is in there I go to a place called the Sound Bar, which, if you’re interested, is situated right next to the bus station in Skipton. I like the Sound Bar although I do think it’s trying a little too hard to be cool. It really doesn’t need to.

It’s called the Sound Bar because…

It is a bar
It sells music in both vinyl and cd formats

Also, they have regular gigs and performances there and they play some pretty decent music while you’re having a drink or a vinyl/cd safari. Plus, the walls are decorated with all manner of Rock n Roll memorabilia. It’s kind of like stepping back in time to the early eighties so it is extremely retro in that respect.

Anyway, I like going in there and it’s a very rare occasion that I don’t come out of the place with at least one new record in my hand; often several.

And so, last Friday I found myself in there again.

There were only a few people in at that time and so I bought a pint of Guinness Zero and had a quaff before perusing said vinyl. There was a lady seated at the table next to mine, maybe in her early seventies, holding a Yorkshire terrier and drinking a latte. I smiled and said, “How d’you do?” to be polite and then I took a generous swallow of my non-alcoholic stout.

To cut a short story even shorter we began a conversation about music and we discovered our tastes ran along similar lines. We talked of bands we’d seen and whilst I name dropped Wishbone Ash and Uriah Heep, she countered with Hawkwind and Smile. For the uninitiated, Smile was Queen before they were Queen. Wow!

We talked of many other things; grandchildren being one, and I felt quite proud to tell her that Erin at 19 years old is rather fond of Fleetwood Mac. We also talked about dogs and pets in general. I had a Yorkie/Jack Russell cross many years ago (Suzy) and so we found another shared interest.

When I’d first sat down I noticed that there was a certain air of melancholy about her but as we talked her mood seemed to lift. I finished my pint and excused myself as I wanted to look at the records.

My vinyl safari lasted about fifteen minutes or so and I came away with a copy of Foxtrot by Genesis in excellent condition. Feeling rather chuffed I bought another Zero and sat down again. The lady was still there and was now drinking a glass of lager; it being after midday I suppose.

We got to chatting again and she asked me about my walking stick. I gave her a potted history of my health problems and then she told me something that really stopped me in my tracks.

She told me that very recently she had been diagnosed with dementia.

I didn’t quite know what to say at that juncture. Here was a total stranger telling me that basically life is about to get a lot worse for her but still saying it in a chatty and conversational way. Now I knew the reason for her melancholy countenance when I first arrived but the thing is that without us having that chat I wouldn’t have known about her condition as she was so talkative.

Now, I think I realise what was going on.

She was unburdening to me about her diagnosis. Having formed a sort of connection through a shared interest in music, grandkids and dogs she had felt able to tell me about dementia affecting her life. And the amazing thing was that even though she’d told me that she did seem a lot happier than when I’d first met her a mere half hour ago. Relieved almost.

We chatted a little more about Led Zeppelin and Genesis and then she said that she had to go and meet her daughter to whom the little dog belonged. I said something like, “See you later!” which is a bit phatic really. Unless she’s in the Sound Bar the next time I’m in there it’s highly unlikely.

I wish I’d told her that I hoped she would be all right or given her some words of comfort and encouragement instead of those three vacant words I had employed. I was cross with myself to be perfectly honest.

However…

Since then I’ve had a different opinion. It didn’t matter how we finished the conversation, what was more important was the fact that we’d had one in the first place and it had made an improvement to her day. And that, I suppose, is the moral of this story. We should never shy away from engaging with our fellow man or woman. A bit of a chat about music, dogs, art, literature, football, gardening, tea bags, bog snorkelling or whatever the hell else you have in common can make a massive difference to that person’s day.

I realised that our little chat had been a powerful thing and, even though I never even asked her name nor she mine, I like to think that I made a bit of a difference to her.

Ange arrived about ten minutes after the lady had left and had enjoyed her reflexology session immensely. I told her that this woman I’d never met before had confided her dementia diagnosis to me and part of me wished she had been there at the time as she is the most understanding and sensitive person you could ever hope to meet and would have been a much better sounding board for such things – I’m not a great conversationalist at the best of times.

But I’m going to try and do better in the future. I need to make more of an effort with people and take the time to chat with strangers. We all should. You just never know what it might achieve.

A Catch 22 Situation

Catch 22

Noun:

A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.

And I found myself in the midst of a Catch 22 on Friday.

I had a blood test a few weeks ago and thought no more about it until I received a phone call from my GP to say that he’d like to see me as the test had shown a significant increase in cholesterol since last year. Quite a hike actually.

We had a discussion during which he bombarded me with information but the thing that I took away the most from it was when he told me that I was now 20% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than I was this time last year. Now, I had two trains of thought about this.

20% isn’t too bad. It could be worse.
Then again if the current trend continues at 20% per annum I’ll be dead in another 4 years.

And that second thought really woke me up rather. And, to be perfectly honest, I needed a bloody good wake up call and there it was.

It’s been a tough old year so far, and the previous three months, and I must hold my hand up and admit that I’ve sought a lot of help from Barefoot, Yellow Tail, McGuigan and Jam Shed. I’m not talking getting pie-eyed every night but certainly having more units per week than is thought safe by the medical profession. So I can’t help thinking that I have indeed been the architect of my own downfall as it were.

I haven’t actually had an alcoholic drink for eleven days now as I was aware that every time I stepped on the bathroom scales the needle was going in the wrong direction. The good thing is that I can’t say I miss it either so that’s a good thing.

But I did leave the health centre that morning with a grim determination that I was going to reduce that 20% figure and beat cholesterol into bloody, quivering submission. I have been prescribed statins, which will help, but I want to do it the old-fashioned way and clear those arteries out with healthy food that is low in cholesterol.

So I went home and did a bit of Googling (as one does) and found that most of the things I enjoy eating are actually plotting to assassinate me – red meat, bacon, chips, chocolate, eggs, butter etc etc. However, the foods that will prolong my existence on this Earth are things like avocados, salads, fruit and veg, olive oil, chicken without the skin and fish. All I can say is that it’s a good job that I like all of those things as well.

Being thus armed with the information I needed I started exactly how I meant to go on. I was home by half past nine as the surgery is quite literally a stone’s throw from our flat (although, I haven’t ever thrown a stone at it so I can’t vouch for the authenticity of that statement) and I was home in much less than five minutes.

Breakfast time!

I had a banana and an orange. By most people’s standards that’s not much for a man of such ample proportions to last on until lunchtime but I was so determined that I was going to change the course of my life that I was resolute. I washed the fruit down with a cup of rooibos tea which has something like 2 calories in it and is packed with anti-oxidants whilst also being naturally caffeine free. I thought I was on to a winner.

However…

In the afternoon we drove the twenty or so miles to Keighley as we needed to speak to someone at the bank about one or two things (nothing to worry about – we aren’t destitute) and we arrived at twenty past two. The bank closed at three and there was quite a queue and we began to wonder whether or not we would get served in time before it shut its doors.

I’m not good at all at standing for long periods of time and the heat in the bank was actually quite oppressive. There was no air and to be honest the whole place had a sort of stale tobacco/sweaty armpit kind of odour. I began to feel queasy.

Within a few minutes I found myself forced to sit down and by the time that a very nice lady (called Tracy) smilingly ushered us into one of the little interview rooms I was sweating from every pore, my clothes were wet from it, my hair was plastered to my scalp and my vision kept going dark. I was sure that I was about to measure my length on the floor and thoroughly embarrass myself and my lovely wife by fainting.

My blood sugar was incredibly low and that happens a lot.

An awful lot.

Fortunately, Tracy was quick to respond. She got one member of staff to bring me water and another member of staff was dispatched to Poundland (next door) to procure some Mars bars for me. He came back with a four pack of which I ate three in quick succession and downed three glasses of water.

Eventually, I began to feel a little better. But only a little. We concluded our business at the bank and then returned to the multi-storey car park, my legs shaking like a border terrier who has just seen a cat walk past its window. I was in a bad way folks. A very bad way.

Ange decided that more food was in order and so she advanced on Greggs and bought me a couple of sausage rolls. Now, I usually think of Greggs sausage rolls as a food source in the same way that I think that raw sewage is, but right there and then as I sat in the car chewing on those foul, grey-meated, grease-dripping comestibles I couldn’t have been happier with a medium sirloin steak and triple cooked chunky chips. It was just so good to get some food inside me so that the shaking would stop.

You can, therefore, no doubt see what my Catch 22 situation is…

I have to eat healthily to get my cholesterol down and I have to stuff myself with carbs and sugar when my blood sugar levels drop. The choice is either fight or faint. And I don’t know what to do.

The good news is that I have been tested for diabetes and despite being told that I am at risk of it there is no sign of me actually having it yet. Phew!

I don’t know why these episodes are so severe. I know everybody gets their energy depleted from time to time and feels weak as a result but I go from this huge big guy to trembling, sweaty, whimpering shambles in a matter of minutes. And when that happens it really is a case of either sit down or fall down.

Shoving carbs and sugar down my gullet will do my cholesterol levels no good whatsoever but lets be honest, when my blood sugar drops like that then a celery stick isn’t going to get me back on my feet again. Ergo – Catch 22.

Suggestions for my problem will be eagerly received so please do pop them in the comments section or email me at contact@blesshamhall.co.uk I look forward to hearing from you.

Incidentally, Catch 22 is the title of one of the best books ever written, by a man called Joseph Heller, and is so funny and yet so shocking at the same time that it really does fit the old adage of “couldn’t put it down.” If you haven’t read it then I strongly advise, nay urge, you to do so at the earliest available convenience.

Sissy

Right then, I’m not too sure how to go about this one but I feel I need to do it. My sense of decency insists on it. But before you accuse me of anything, please read it properly and see that it’s coming from a place of concern, not condemnation.

So here I go!

I’m on a short break in Skipton at the moment with my lovely lady wife and we’re staying on our daughter’s boyfriend’s beautiful canal boat. His name is Paul, by the way, and he’s a top-drawer bloke who we like tremendously. Being experienced boaters of old, Ange and I are used to the problems and foibles of boating life. One of the main problems facing canal boaters is the onboard toilet; vis-à-vis they do tend to fill up rather quickly as they are either the cassette variety, which need to be emptied by hand every four to five days, or the pump out type that rely on a septic storage tank that requires pumping out at a boatyard when full.

Paul’s boat is the latter and so we decided that, as its not actually our boat, we would only use the loo for number 1’s. For number 2’s we would use the public conveniences in the car park opposite where we are moored. They aren’t the best toilets in Skipton but they aren’t the worst either – that particular honour goes to the utterly horrendous CRT loos by the canal; lets just say you do need to be pretty bloody desperate to use them. But the car park ones are just the right side of ok.

But only just…

By the closest of margins…

Actually, now I think about it, they are quite awful.

There! I’ve set the scene nicely haven’t I?

So it was with a little trepidation, on Monday morning, that I made my shambling, shuffling way to the car park toilet as fast as my trembling and aching legs could carry me. I wasn’t exactly touching cloth but there was a genuine and definite feeling of necessity for the journey; if you know what I mean. Suffice to say I made it there in time.

There are two cubicles in the Coach Street car park toilets and seeing as the right hand one was in use I had no choice but to take the left. I closed and locked the door and within a matter of a few seconds was in position as it were.

And that’s when I saw it!

I looked at the back of the cubicle door and saw that it was adorned with graffiti of a somewhat thought-provoking if slightly off-putting nature.

There it was in inch high black letters, the words – SISSY IN PINK PANTIES WANTS COCKS TO SUCK!!!

There was an accompanying phone number but I won’t print it here.

Now, let me set the record straight. I am not in any way homophobic. I am not any kind of phobic towards anyone regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation. I accept everyone on merit and I have many gay and lesbian friends whose friendship I value and I would never allow anyone to verbally abuse them because of their sexuality.

However…

There was a sudden revulsion that rose up in me at that glowing piece of literary genius on the back of that door. I didn’t want to be in a toilet that was being used for such purposes. And believe me, if the words had been written by a member of the fairer sex I would have felt exactly the same.

I think what actually made me feel that way was the fact that it was a grotty, smelly and largely unpleasant public convenience and the thought that anyone should want to engage in any kind of sexual activity in such a noxious location turned my very stomach.

Because, and here’s the clincher, whoever Sissy was, his intellectual outpouring wasn’t actually the worst thing written on the back of the door. It just stood out the most being in such big letters. There were much, much worse messages and the urge to get back to the boat and have a scalding hot shower was strong in this one.

There is no way on this Earth that I am going to reprint those awful scrawls here and I am neither a prude nor easily shocked or offended. Yes, that’s how bad they were. I soon realised that Sissy, whoever he was, was not the real problem here.

The reality that we are living in such a sexually depraved society that men (or women) are happy to perform fellatio, or anything else that comes to mind, in such a disgusting, germ and disease ridden environment was enough to make my gorge rise and I if I hadn’t already begun to have a bowel movement I would have left immediately and tried my luck elsewhere.

The question I have, I suppose, is that in this age of internet communication that we find ourselves living in, is there not a better way for people to a) contact one another with their desires and b) find somewhere more appropriate to perform them?

Listen, as far as Sissy is concerned, he can spend the rest of his life sucking whatever and whoever he wants wherever he wants to and I’ll be as happy as Larry for him but I hope for his sake (and all those other toilet authors) that he takes serious precautions because if that’s the way he conducts his sex life he’s asking for a whole host of extremely unpleasant and potentially life-threatening illnesses to come his way and not necessarily sexually transmitted ones.

Part of me felt sorry for Sissy. He’s clearly a very lonely person and not in any kind of stable relationship with a significant other. Homosexuality and single sex marriage are now perfectly legal in the UK and have been for some time now. Surely there’s no longer any need for people like Sissy to skulk around in the car park bogs hoping for a blow job. It’s not the 19^th or 20^th century anymore. Gay men meeting in public lavatories is nothing new of course, it’s been happening for a long time. I just feel that it’s something that should be consigned to the history books as there really is no need for it anymore and I think that had a large part to play in how I was feeling. It seemed like an archaic throwback to a less tolerant time when homosexuality was viewed with fear or ridicule by those who knew little about it.

And so, no matter how close I am to soiling myself in the future, I won’t be using Coach Street toilets again in a hurry. I’d hate to intrude on someone’s intimacy of either a hetero or homosexual nature.

And in case you’re wondering (ya weirdo ye), I went to the disabled one in Morrisons on Tuesday.

And, there was no graffiti!

Two Funerals

Now before you start to think that this is going to be a morbid post purely from the title then let me reassure you that it most certainly is not. Whilst it is true that I have attended two funerals within the space of six days, I’m not going to dwell on the mourning side of them but rather the celebration of two lives and what I’ve learned about myself from them.

The first funeral, last Thursday, was my own mother’s. I could tell you the tale of how it just shouldn’t have happened and that Melton Mowbray hospital let her and us down with their negligence but I don’t want to do that (they did though) but that wouldn’t be my style. No, I’d much rather tell you how beautiful her send-off was.

We followed her wishes to the letter and whilst it was in the vein of a traditional funeral with church service, hymns and prayers it was also a time for my brother and I to inject a little light humour into it with our eulogy. Mum would have liked that. She enjoyed a good laugh. And I think what I took away from it was to treasure the small things in life. It isn’t always about the big things. Oh sure, we all remember those great, expensive foreign holidays or meeting the rich and famous or being at a certain major event; those are all good memories.

But reading through the eulogy (wot I wrote) brought back so many memories of times that still bring a huge smile to my face. For example, as kids we were taken to Mablethorpe for a week for our annual Summer holiday until I was 10 and we ventured as far as Cornwall. I have much better and fonder memories of those times than I have of say, going to Benidorm with the lads when I was 18. Much of that trip is a hazy San Miguel induced blur.

We thought we were going somewhere exotic where we would sip Sangria on the beach and that there would be dusky, hot-blooded, passionate Spanish women throwing themselves at our sun-bronzed bodies and that the air would be thick with the heady scent of oleander. The reality was a beach that was too hot to walk on, dingey nightclubs selling insipid lager and pretty much nothing else and a sewage system that left a permanent mephitis hanging in the air. We weren’t even bronzed. None of us dared take our T shirts off for longer than a few minutes at a time but then maybe we shouldn’t have gone in August.

And as for the ladies. Most of them were called either Tracy or Cassandra, came from the North-East of England and were all even drunker than we were. Although some of them did throw themselves at us but not in a hot-blooded tempestuous way. More like an ashtray breath, falling over, spewing in the street kind of way. Not the holiday we had in mind when we booked it and if truth be told I’d much rather forget it all together.

But those childhood days of playing on the Lincolnshire sands with bucket and spade are memories I will always treasure.

And there were other times too that came out of that eulogy. Not great, Earth-shattering life events but simple family moments that actually brought a good few chuckles from those in the church with us. And so, in that sense, it truly was a celebration of life. Not just my mum’s but my whole family. And that taught me something. I’m going to cherish every moment I spend with those I love – my beautiful, wise and funny wife Ange, my step-daughter Becky with her lust for life, my granddaughter Erin who makes me feel like the luckiest man on Earth, my wider family (both my own and my in-laws) and of course all the excellent friends that we have around us. I want to commit to memory all the funny little things people have said and the laughter we share over the years.

Sounds mawkish?

Probably, but so what? It’s better than filling your head with pornography or horror movies or soap operas or anything with Jimmy Carr in. It’s probably true that there are people in this world that remember Scott and Charlene’s wedding in Neighbours better than their own.

So that’s what I took away from Mum’s funeral.

The second one was just a few days ago, and it was the funeral of Judith; an old friend and colleague of Ange’s. Judith was a great character. A very glamorous lady (even in her later years) with an intelligence to match and a deep-rooted love of English history. Throughout her life Judith travelled extensively and lived in New Zealand for a time. She loved vibrant colours, animals of all shapes and sizes (especially cats) and indeed was in love with life itself.

And her family were adored by her and she by them.

I didn’t know Judith as much as I would have liked to have done but it was her joy of being alive that spoke to me the most about her at the funeral, which was perhaps one of the most light-hearted and joyful of such occasions that I have ever known. Part of the wake was spent by people sharing their memories of Judith and the sense of love in the room for her was palpable.

And do you know what? That is exactly how I want people to be at my funeral. I want to be someone who is missed. That may sound selfish but that’s the overwhelming thing that came out of Judith’s funeral. This woman had lived her life in such a way that she really has left a gaping hole in the lives of all who knew her.

So I’m going to try and live like that. Oh yes, I know I’m a larger than life, constantly joking, generous, kind-hearted man and I do have a great many people that will miss me when I’m gone. But from what I learned at Judith’s funeral I want to be more than that. I want to be a force of nature to people and treat everyone the way that I would want to be treated by them.

In a nutshell, I’m going to try harder.

So two funerals. I cried at my mum’s because of who it was that I’d lost but I’ll always remember that there were a lot of folks there for a 92-year-old’s funeral and they all had a laugh on the day.

I smiled during Judith’s funeral, just with the simple pleasure of hearing about a life well lived and that will remain with me always.

There you are you see. I said it wasn’t going to be morbid and it wasn’t.

P.S – If you’re wondering about the Jimmy Carr bit, I just think the man is a colossal, monstrously offensive bell-end with less talent than a handkerchief full of phlegm and shouldn’t be allowed to show his smug, gurning face on the television..

RISE and Whine

Don’t worry, that’s not a typo. It’s definitely RISE and Whine, not rise and wine. No, things aren’t quite that desperate yet. The RISE part (all capitalised you will note) was the opening ceremony of the Bradford UK City of Culture Year and the whine bit is what I have been dong ever since.

If you want to know what I thought of RISE then you can read my review on Substack – Click Here

If you want to know what I’m whining about then stay tuned.

And it’s just a very short one today.

The RISE event itself was ok, just, but like I say, read the review, the problem was that it was outside in the perishing cold and I was on my feet for a lengthy spell of time. Neither of those two scenarios are at all in any way good for fibromyalgia; as the rest of the week has borne testimony to.

RISE was on Saturday night and I woke up on Sunday morning wondering where the gorilla had gone. By which I mean the gorilla who had been throwing my unconscious body against the bedroom walls for eight hours non-stop. It must have been a fully grown silverback gorilla because I can’t think of any other animal (maybe a male orangutan) that would have the upper body strength to do such a thing to a man of my bulging ampleness.

That was the only explanation for the screeching pain that came to mind when I woke up.

Of course, as my bleary and bloodshot eyes began to focus once more, I realised that there hadn’t really been a gorilla. I mean, how could there have been? Unless it had its own set of keys…

*note to self – check with building manager re: the possibility of gorillas having keys.

No, reality soon dawned on me that I was feeling thus because I had stood in a minus degree temperature on a rock-hard pavement for approximately two and a half bloody hours. During which time I was treated to seriously awful techno music, a mediocre show and had inhaled about twenty-five different odours of various fast food establishments. I swear you could taste listeria in the air.

Everything hurts like blazes and the TENS machine has had to work overtime ever since. Tramadol tablets have been pouring down my yearning throat like Zulus charging at Rourke’s Drift and my carefully managed supply of diazepam is now fast dwindling in a most alarming fashion. And I really try to go steady with that stuff!

So yes, I am whining quite a lot after RISE. But hey, at least I can say I was there!

Whoop-de-do!

Hope to bring you a more positive blog post next week x

New Year, New Whatever…

Happy New Year one and all!

Can it really be a full year ago since the blog post – Good Intentions? It blooming well is you know. So here’s a quick review of the good intentions and what I achieved (and didn’t) in 2024.

Well, on a personal level I managed to lose the pitiful amount of 8 pounds in weight. Piss poor even if I do say so myself. At one point I’d actually lost over a whole stone but then Christmas came along and buggered all that up. So I’m more or less back to the beginning with that.

I have almost stuck to one of my goals that I set myself of going outside every day and getting some fresh air, rather than moping in the flat on bad days. And I came so close to achieving a full 366 days but for one when I was enjoying time with some visiting friends so much that I actually forgot to go out. I could kick myself for that one.

But in other ways I have been better. For instance, dry January ran into dry February, dry March and almost dry April. I broke my duck on April 28^th whilst out for a meal with the family and sank two pints of delicious, cold Guinness. And I’m trying it again this year. Going dry for a month I mean, not drinking two pints of Guinness, although I probably will drink a lot more than two pints of it before the year is out.

I’ve taken much better care of myself in many ways but my health has deteriorated with the arrival of cervical spondylosis, which is quite literally a pain in the neck. Fibromyalgia has run rampant like wildfire through my entire body and I had a cist the size of Bournemouth on my back at one point that required some pretty intense meds to shift.

So health wise it’s not been too great.

As for the old writing lark, well, that’s been an odd one. This is the first year that I haven’t published a book since 2019, when the wonderful Ah Boy! made its debut. Mind you, I did publish a weekly serialisation of a novel called Take a Hike that I wrote almost twenty years ago, which wasn’t very good to be honest, and doesn’t actually count as canon even though it does reference Ingleby but is set mainly in Whitby and therefore is something of an anomaly. It’s a bit like when Sean Connery made Never Say Never Again. Yes, it kind of was a Bond film with many of the usual elements in it but it just wasn’t officially part of the series. That’s how I look at Take a Hike.

This ‘ere blog has suffered a bit; I have to hold my hands up and admit to that. You see I got distracted by the glamorous lure of Substack. I envisaged that when I started posting in May of last year that I would be in three or four figures of subscribers by now.

That hasn’t been the case.

I’m still in the low double figures.

Then, on October the 18^th, my mum was hospitalised after a fall at home. The next two and half months saw Ange and I travel almost 3500 miles up and down the motorway to go and visit her every Friday to Monday. We slept on an air bed on my mum’s living room floor and I’ll leave you to guess how that has affected me physically.

And I’ll let you in to a little secret…

At one point I nearly quit!

I did. I nearly quit writing altogether. I just didn’t have the heart for it anymore. The horrible truth about being an independent author is that it’s frightfully hard to get people to take a chance on you. You see, if my name were David Walliams or Richard Osman or even Jamie Oliver (shudder) then publishers would be fighting each other to get a six-book contract into my sweaty little palms. But I’m not a celebrity, I’m a nobody, and nobody wants to read a nobody. If that makes sense?

But, I didn’t quit. Thanks to good advice from close family and true friends and the wonderful support of my amazing wife I feel a renewed determination at the start of this year. For one thing, Ange has retired now and I have to re-double my efforts at selling my books. Blessham Hall doesn’t get many tourists you see, and what with all the renovations to the front terrace and the owls nesting in the west wing, I really need to get myself paid for what I do.

Anyway, here’s the thing. I’m not setting myself any goals or resolutions for this year. I’m going to write when I write and not stress out on the days when I don’t. I’ve got plans for an anthology of my non-novel writing and I do hope to get the next Archie and Aggie Stone novel finished. It would be nice to start on the next Blessham book as well, which has a storyline I’m really excited about.

But if it don’t happen it won’t happen, and I need to keep a philosophical outlook.

I’d like to be sat here in 365 days’ time and tell you that I’m many stones lighter and several jeans sizes thinner but I’ll be happy with whatever I lose and if I can answer the front door without getting out of breath and breaking into a sweat by then, then I shall feel like a winner.

2025 – Bring It On!

Dear Santa

Can’t be mid December already can it? Seems like only yesterday that I wrote my annual Christmas diatribe for the blog 2023. Oh well, never mind, I’ve got this year’s ready to go, right here.

The thinking behind this one is the fact that I simply cannot stand the awful commercialism that now blights this time of year. To me, Christmas has been tarnished by the over-infatuation with the man in red.

Christmas was never about toys and over-indulgence back in the day and a large part of me wishes that that were the case now. So here, unexpurgated, is my own personal letter to the imaginary person that we lie to children about every year.

Enjoy…

Dear Santa

This year I have been a very good boy. I have been to church, given to charity, helped my friends, family and neighbours and done a fair bit of voluntary work as well. So I think I should therefore be on the NICE LIST this year.

Ok, yes, there might have been the odd occasion where I have thought ill of others who have behaved badly or sworn like a docker at a fellow motorist who clearly doesn’t know his highway code from his arsehole but apart from that, yes, I’ve been a good little boy.

So I was hoping for something really cool in my stocking this year, even though I don’t possess a chimney in my flat for you to come down. And I’m not entirely sure the building manager would appreciate eight or nine fully grown reindeer and a giant sled groaning with toys on the roof but I’ll have a quiet word with her and see what can be done.

If you recall Santa, you haven’t bought me a single thing since I was about ten years old. Not that I’m complaining or anything. I mean, who am I to complain? Friends and family members have filled in nicely ever since so it’s not like I’ve missed out or anything.

Actually, now I come to think of it, you’re a bit of a monumental let down, aren’t you? Promising this and that to kiddies so long as they behave themselves all year. For goodness sake man were you never a child yourself? I suppose that you were never naughty, were you? Oh no, not good old Father Christmas or Kris Kringle or whatever the hell else you go by.

Actually, do you know what, it’s time for a bit of a truth bomb my fat friend.

You’re a dirty old deviant really.

I mean, what kind of pervert spends all year spying on little children to monitor their behaviour and then checking a sordid little list twice. And that’s before all the trespassing you do every 24^th of December.

Ask yourself now, what would you do if you caught somebody sneaking down your chimney in the dead of night? Huh? You’d chase the blighter back up with the poker that’s what! And don’t give me all that “Oh the little ones leave mince pies and sherry out for me.” You bloated oaf. We all know that if you consumed that much alcohol and pastry in one night you would probably shit yourself to death on Christmas morning when you arrive back at the North Pole or Lapland or wherever it is you inhabit.

Mind you, I suppose it’s not all your fault. You are nothing more than a product of human gullibility after all.

Ever since Coca Cola changed your outfit from a distinguished long green gown to a natty racing red two-piece with matching hat and white fur trim, you’ve convinced us all that we need to blow as much money as possible on food and gifts every year so that we can all have a “magical” time.

Balls!

Do you suppose the kiddies in Gaza and Ukraine and Yemen are having a magical time? What are you giving all them this year? Kevlar vests and battle helmets? You echoing great lump of stale pudding. You’re full of shite Mr Claus, that’s what you are.

And what of the children who go to school in the new year and when their friends tell them they had a new X-Box have to remind themselves that they got a cheap action figure from B&M. And that’s some of the lucky ones. Oh yes, you whiskery old git, I’ve seen all those charity adverts on TV. All those boys and girls going without whilst you ponce about the globe on your poxy sledge!

Good God man have you no shame nor moral compass? No conscience?

And because of your nasty, negative, crappy little list, all of those that go without will then assume they are bad children who don’t deserve anything. How the hell do you sleep at night? I know I couldn’t. And if being dependent on good behaviour is the measure with which you determine who gets and who does not then I say, SOD YOU, YOU FAT, RED-NOSED, OPINIONATED, JUDGEMENTAL OLD FART!!!

Ooh, I am feeling vexed now. You do bugger all for 364 days except sit in judgement of the most vulnerable and innocent in our society. What kind of existence is that? You sad, sad man.

And the pressure, the sheer overwhelming pressure for parents to live up to your expectations so that they end up in debt every stinking year! And they spend all year telling their youngsters not to talk to strange men and then one day a year they say it’s ok to let some bearded old sherry-filled hermit into their bedroom.

Double-standards in the highest and a pack of lies to boot!

Look, I don’t want to put a downer on Christmas. So please stay the bloody hell away from me and my family and I’ll say no more other than I hope the reindeer go on strike and you spend Christmas taking a good, long, hard look at yourself.

Between you and the advertising executives you’ve sucked all of the joy out of Christmas and replaced it with materialism. It used to be about peace and goodwill to all men; now it’s about “what am I going to get? Me, me, me!”

Bloody hell we may as well ditch the whole Christmas thing and call it Winterfest or Santa Day or International Bank Account Emptying Season, because that’s what it’s become and that’s all down to you and your mates in marketing.

So I’ll finish, if I may, with these few well-chosen words from Daffy Duck – You’re despicable!

Yours truthfully,

Alan Stevenson (You know where I live)

PS – Here’s my Christmas wish. I wish your underpants “magically” turn into holly mid-flight somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

Could You Write That Down Please Doctor?

So I had a doctors appointment two weeks ago and I’d like to tell you about it in my own inimitable way.

For some time now I’ve been having excruciating pains in my left arm. Pain that I can only adequately describe as toothache of the muscles. Imagine the worst dental pain you’ve ever experienced and now transfer the thought of that pain into your arm. Yeah, that’s how it’s been.

Foolishly, being a perfect fool of course, I ignored it.

I figured that maybe it was just a trapped nerve somewhere and that it would come loose eventually through steady and continued use of painkillers and my TENS machine.

Berk extraordinaire!!!

The pain always begins in my left shoulder and then radiates down the tricep muscle before taking a detour into my lower forearm and finally landing in my thumb and forefinger. And when it strikes (several times a day) the result is always the same. Blistering agony, pins and needles from hades and the feeling as if I want the damn thing amputated.

My lovely wife insisted that I go to the doctor and get it checked out once and for all. I imagined still that it was nought more than a trapped nerve and that maybe by some kind of massage or manipulation I would be set free from said pain.

Au contraire mon ami.

After a pretty extensive examination the doctor pronounced his diagnosis. I have cervical spondylosis.

I asked him to repeat that as I don’t have a cervix and I thought that surely it must be something only a woman could suffer from. I was always useless at biology. He repeated it and I was still none the wiser even when he explained what the cervical was.

This left only one option open to me…

“Could you write that down pleased doctor?” I asked.

He did and I sat and stared at the piece of headed surgery paper that he had handed me. There it was in black and white, and also in rather neat handwriting for a doctor – Cervical Spondylosis.

No, I hadn’t heard of it before either but that’s what I have. It’s a fairly common condition brought on by aging, so it seems, although I can’t help think that all those years of headbanging to heavy metal in my formative years couldn’t have helped much either. Well it can’t have done could it?

Anyway, it is this condition, oddly enough, that is causing the arm pain and I have had my dosage of amitriptyline (I think that’s how you spell it) increased by 100%. This means of course, as I take it at night, that I’m neither use nor ornament in the mornings and getting out of bed seems like a chore

Yesterday I began my first course of physiotherapy where I was given a couple of exercises to do and I left the surgery in far more pain than when I’d entered it, which seems a bit counter-productive when you think about it. No pain, no gain I guess.

So that’s where I am right now. There are far worse things in life than cervical spondylosis so I’m not going to wail and moan about it, especially as my younger self’s penchant for throwing my head about to Judas Priest is probably a contributary factor, but instead I’m just going to live with it.

Well what else can you do?

The State of Play

I’m not really sure where to begin with this…

Apologies first I guess, for taking so long to do a blog post from the last one five weeks ago. I did have something pithy, witty and moderately scathing lined up for Halloween but I suppose that will have to wait until next year. But anyway, sincere apologies for taking so long.

Look, it’s been a bloody tough year here at Blessham Hall. One of the toughest in fact, and the last month or so have been extremely challenging. I’d love to report that the challenge has been getting the new novel featuring Archie and Aggie Stone finished but that would be an out and out lie. The challenge has been one on more personal terms.

On Friday 18^th October we received a phone call from my sister-in-law to say that my 92-year-old mother had fallen and broken her hip. Naturally this immediately caused a ton of worry and anxiety for us all and ever since then Ange and I have been travelling the 300-mile round trip to Leicester and back every Friday to Monday to see her and relieve the burden on the rest of the family.

In between I have managed to do a speaking engagement at the local library and a couple of Substack posts but that’s about it. The combination of motorway tailbacks, airbed sleeping, car parking in the middle of Leicester and hospital visits where my mum is talking on a constant loop due to dementia have been very telling on me both physically and mentally.

I’m exhausted.

I even drove home the other week with my TENS machine attached to my aching arms. That’s how bad it is. Trying to change gear around all those wires!

My wife, the lovely Ange, has been an absolute Trojan throughout all of this I have to say. She has supported me better than anyone else could ever have done. I’m so thankful for her.

Love you Ange xxx

But the truth of the matter is that because of all the aforementioned I’m in horrible pain all the time and permanently fatigued. And I mean badly fatigued as well. Not just a little bit tired and in need of a nap; no, I mean I’ve about as much energy in me as…

as…

I don’t even know how to finish that sentence, that’s how low on energy I am.

The other thing is that even despite the lack of energy and physical pain I just can’t seem to find time to write. It’s as if I can’t get any traction going with the laptop. I mentioned the next novel earlier and I have to be honest with you and say that’s it not going to be published this year. In fact, this will be the first year that I have gone without publishing a book since I began my independently-published journey in 2019 with Ah Boy.

And that actually makes me really sad when I think about it.

Of course, I am aware that prior to the current situation I have been labouring long and hard on my Substack output which has in turn made me neglect my first love of novel writing. It’s a lot easier to do a Substack post than it is to churn out an 85,000-word book.

But even Substack is beginning to suffer now and I find myself desperately trying to play catch-up every week. FFS!!! I can’t keep apologising! But that’s what I do.

And I do love writing. I can’t describe to you the immeasurable pleasure that I derive from it. I’m not saying I’m a great writer and I’m not even saying I’m a good one. What I’m saying is that I bloody well love doing it and I just can’t get any done at the moment.

If it sounds like I’m blaming my mum then that’s not the case. I don’t. It’s awful and heart-breaking seeing her the way she is. I’m just trying to convey the effect her accident and the rest of this stinker of a year has had on me; that’s all.

I wanted to put you all in the picture, especially in view of the fact that I’ve had quite an influx of new subscribers lately and I hate to disappoint people. My only excuse, if there is one, is that I do suffer horrendously from fibromyalgia and I do have other health issues as well. I’m just not as resilient as I used to be.

I mean, heck, when I was a younger man you should have seen me go. I was a live-wire of energy, always doing something, even after a hard day’s work. How I long for just a fraction of what I had back then energy wise. These days I’m more like an old worn-out leisure battery. Yes you can charge me up but I’ll run out of charge in no time at all.

Aah bloody hell, I don’t even know where I’m going with this now. It started out as a brief explanation of where I am and it’s turned into some kind of lecture on the physical history of Alan Stevenson.

Sorry folks.

The good news is that my mum has been moved to a lovely rehab hospital now close to where she lives and is getting a lot more visitors and so the pressure on the family is a lot less. So much so that Ange and I have this weekend off from travelling and the airbed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good quality airbed and we’re extremely grateful for the loan of it from our neighbours – Josie and Glyn; its just not the same as one’s own mattress.

So the immediate future looks a bit better shall we say.

That’s all for now as I can feel the fatigue setting in again but I will try and post again next week. I need a bit of a lie down and then I’m going to try and get Substack back up and running and then tomorrow, hopefully, do a bit more towards the next novel.

Here’s hoping at least.

Love you all.

Al x